Atomic Pongling

**Atomic Pongling** is an arcade game developed by Playtonium Inc and released in 2003. It was available for download until the client shut down in 2013.

## How to Play

Use your bowling ball as a paddle to hit the object ball into the frames.  Scoring is the same as bowling; there are 10 numbered frames and 2 bonus frames.  You can hit the frames in any order.  A frame closes when you get a strike or after the ball has been in it twice.

Play Atomic Pongling with either your mouse or your keyboard.

Click the Left-Mouse Button to launch the object ball into the playing area.  Move your mouse side to side to move the bowling ball paddle across the bottom of the screen.

If you prefer the keyboard, press the Spacebar to launch the object ball, then use the Z and X keys to move the bowling ball paddle.

These are the default keyboard controls.  To change these settings, click “Settings” from the Main Menu.  Click the movement you wish to change, and then press the key you want to use.

The settings menu can also be used to set up the controls for 2-Player games.

Your bowling ball paddle is at the bottom of the screen.  Use it as a paddle to hit the small object ball into the bowling frames.  If you miss the object ball, it will fall into the gutter and a “zero” will be assigned to the first frame that has not been completed.

At the beginning of each game, there are two closed frames with a small star where a number would be.  These are the bonus frames.  If you get a spare or a strike in the 10th frame, the first bonus frame opens.  Score a strike in the 10th and the first bonus frame to open the second bonus frame.

As you pongle, the score for the game is always being updated.  Since a final bowling score depends on the sequence of all the frames, a final score cannot be computed until all frames are completed.  You can, however, keep an eye on the MIN and MAX scores as you go.  The min score begins at zero and counts.  It’s the score you’d earn if every shot went into the gutter.  The max score begins at 300 and counts down.  It’s the score you’d earn if every shot were a strike.

There are four game modes in Atomic Pongling: Classic Pongling, Atomic Pongling, Reactor Pongling, and Shootout Pongling.

If you’ve never played Pongling before, CLASSIC PONGLING is a good place to start.  Here you can learn the basics of Pongling before you try some of the trickier modes.  The frames are set up in a straight line in Classic.

Things start to get really crazy in ATOMIC PONGLING.  Consisting of fifty levels, Atomic Pongling is easy to play, but tough to master.

Every Atomic level has a different frame layout.  Some frames are on the sides of the screen, some float in the middle, some point up while others point down.  You’ll have to figure out the best angles and bounces to use as you progress.  The farther you go, the more challenging atomic becomes.

Every level of Atomic has a Bowl to Advance score.  You must exceed this score to advance to the next level.

Shoot a strike in Atomic, and a bonus will drop down from the strike frame.  Intercept it with your bowling ball paddle to pick up it.  Some bonuses are helpful while others are not.  Experiment with them to see which ones should be snatched up, and which ones should be avoided.

REACTOR PONGLING is a competitive 2-Player game.  If you don’t happen to have a friend handy, you can play against the computer.

Reactor has two sets of frames at the top of the screen and two bowling ball paddles at the bottom.  Only one player’s bowling ball paddle is active at a time.  Once the object ball is hit, the other player’s bowling ball paddle becomes active.  The two frames at the top will swap positions depending on which player is active.  The first player to complete his or her game ends the other player’s game - putting a gutter ball score in the other player’s incomplete frames.

Another exciting 2-Player game is SHOOTOUT PONGLING.  Shootout combines the frame set up of Atomic with the head-to-head action of Reactor.

Shootout’s play areas are side by side.  The players control their own sides and shoot at their own frames.  Watch out for the Worm Hole; this phenomena in the center of each side transports the object ball to the other players side.  There’s only one object ball in Shootout.  Each player is limited to his or her side of the playing.

## Availablity Status

This game is archived as of December 14, 2020. Courtesy of TheBowlFoSho.