# HyperBowl — user reviews > 73 indexed App Store user reviews of HyperBowl by Technicat, LLC, rated 4.60/5 from 407 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/hyperbowl/id344209253/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/hyperbowl/id344209253.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 325 · 4★ 49 · 3★ 16 · 2★ 5 · 1★ 12 ## What do users think of HyperBowl? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🎮 Nostalgic gameplay experience - 🎨 Good graphics and visual design - 😊 Fun and entertaining bowling mechanics - 🆓 Free with no ads - 📱 Smooth touch-based controls - 🎯 Multiple unique fantasy lanes - 🏆 Game Center support with leaderboards - ⚡ Smooth performance on most devices **Cons** - 🔇 Broken music and sound effects - 🐢 Ball movement too slow - 🐛 Game freezes and crashes - ❌ No way to exit game without hard reset - 📊 Scoring glitches on certain lanes - 🎮 Controls could be more intuitive - 📱 Performance issues on older devices - 🚫 Missing lanes from original arcade version - ⚠️ Inconsistent physics and collision detection **Commonly reported bugs** - Music and sound effects completely non-functional - Game freezes during gameplay - Ball gets stuck on certain lanes - Incorrect pin scoring on Snowpack lane - Game cannot be exited without hard reset - Review popup text invisible - Collision detection issues with obstacles - Performance degradation on older iOS devices - Android version no longer works - Inconsistent ball physics behavior **Most requested features** - Fix and restore music and sound effects - Add all bowling ball skins from PC version - Implement tilt controls for smoother gameplay - Add trackpad and keyboard support for iPad - Increase ball rolling speed - Add 120FPS mode for iPad Pro - Include remaining arcade lanes (Tokyo, San Francisco improvements) - Add dynamic shadows on all maps - Implement proper game exit menu - Add settings/configuration menu - Improve High Seas lane physics - Remake of Labyrinth game - PC/Mac version release ## Newest reviews (17 of 73) ### 4/5 — 回忆 *2026-05-01* 之前用安卓手机天天玩这个 ### 4/5 — Wowwy *2024-08-07* Soooo good I like **Developer response:** Thanks! ### 4/5 — UPDATED REVIEW: Lots to investigate. *2020-12-11, version 5.06* Review updated from 3* to 4* due to: DEVELOPER RESPONSE on 12/10/2020... That is the kind of {necessary} info the game needed in a ‘history/controls’ tutorial section of the app; just one or two panels more of info will suffice like this: “... the game is an authentic port from a Sony Metreon arcade attraction in the 1990’s using a traditional {bowling ball as a} trackball.” • The controls mimic the push/action of scrolling a trackball by scrolling the {imaginary} bowling ball/trackball by sliding your finger ‘up-the-screen’. • Note: The bowling ball can be pushed multiple times to change direction and/or speed while rolling. • Enjoy this authentic arcade port featuring the original arcade graphics from 1999.” Thank you for the history on the game. PREVIOUS REVIEW 12/09/2020: (3-Stars) Simple enough game. Controls are intriguing... scored 109 in my first game not knowing what I was doing. Could have a better “introductory” tutorial on controls. ### 5/5 — Just like how I remembered it! And no ads! *2020-12-08* First off, I can’t believe this game is free and contains no ads. I would have easily paid money for this game. The ball seems a little slower than I remember, but doesn’t really affect my enjoyment. I found this by accident and was super nostalgic for me. **Developer response:** I'm glad you like it! I made it free recently because after working on it for the last ten years I'm not actively developing it anymore, plus I was notified that paid games have to be registered in China so I'd rather it be free than have it absent there. I licensed the name and assets from Hyper Entertainment (now Absolute Certainty) and they've been really cool about just wanting to keep the HyperBowl name and game out there! ### 5/5 — Crazy Fun *2020-12-03* This takes bowling in a weird and humorous direction. Yes, it’s challenging on the expert levels. **Developer response:** I'm glad you like it! The original arcade version twenty years ago(!) used a real bowling ball as a trackball for control, so you really had to put some effort in to roll around, and up the hills! ### 5/5 — 中文版 *2020-12-03* 求汉化 ### 5/5 — Exellent port! *2020-08-21* Used to play this game many years ago on PC and had a blast. As for the iOS app, I’m happy to say that this port does the game justice. It runs smoothly and its touch-based controls work very well. **Developer response:** Thanks, I spent a lot of time tuning the touch control, trying to get it just right! ### 5/5 — Amazing *2020-08-06* Great game 10/10 **Developer response:** Thanks, glad you like it! ### 5/5 — Skins for bowling ball *2020-03-30* Love this game😁👍.But is there any possible way that you can add all the different colors and patterns for the bowling balls that were on the pc and other platforms. Instead of there just being 3 that are pretty simple. Would really appreciate it since I don’t have a pc anymore. Thanks🙂. **Developer response:** Hi, thanks for the review! All of the current versions of HyperBowl (mobile and desktop) should have the same set of ball textures, should be around five, I think (I see seven textures in the ball texture folder, but I don't think I'm using all of them). It may be hard to see all of them since the texture is picked at random at the start of the game. If you're referring to the original PC game, I think you're right, I might not have all of those ball textures (I made this version from assets in the original source code, but it's possible not everything is there). I could add or commission more ball textures from another source, and I've also been thinking about adding a ball selector so you can choose your own (maybe as an in-app purchase). I'm also thinking about redoing the game with the Unreal engine this year (this version uses the Unity game engine) so if that happens I'll keep this in mind. In the meantime, if you haven't noticed it already, the iOS version has a Custom Ball option in the pause menu, and if you select that you can use any image in your Photos gallery as the ball texture! (I just put that feature in for fun, but seems like some people actually use it) ### 4/5 — HyperBowl *2020-02-16* How do you open the two additional lanes? I am playing in an IPad. **Developer response:** In the lane selection scene with the doors to Classic, Rome, Forest, High Seas, San Francisco, and Tokyo, roll to the door on the far right, that one brings you to another selection scene with entrances to the new lanes: they are unlabeled but they have different holograms in the doorways for snowpark, grassy pier, mushroom land, campfire, and penelope. If you still have trouble, post a comment on hyperbowl.rocks and I'll put up some screenshots. Thanks for playing! ### 3/5 — Hyper bowl *2019-12-29* I like this game but I can’t say it is my favorite. It is very tricky but fun. I love to overcome obstacles and this game has obstacles. It can be nerve racking when l play this against another player but l like competing. Sincerely ,Azja. **Developer response:** Thanks for the review! It's great to hear you're using the multiplayer mode, as I don't get much feedback on that. The original arcade game that used a real bowling ball as a trackball-style controller was very popular for group play (especially in bars), and you really had to put some muscle into it rolling up the streets of San Francisco, for example. ### 5/5 — Huge fan *2017-11-05* I used to play Hyperbowl on my PC as a kid...amazing as it was, I grew out of it but no longer could find the CD ROM recently to play it again. Last I played it was about 9 years ago. I’m actually really happy there this game is now an app! Brings back many memories! **Developer response:** Thanks for the great review! I'm glad you're enjoying the game! ### 5/5 — I love this app! *2017-03-04, version 4.31* I used to have this game on a desktop computer and it used to be one of my favourite games. Sadly, my computer broke and I haven't played it since. Something reminded me of this game, years later and I managed to find it on the App Store. Thank you for making this game so fun! ### 4/5 — Great game! *2015-09-16, version 3.80* Really cool and fun way to play bowling! ### 5/5 — Memories! *2015-01-21, version 3.58* Not much else to say, great game, graphics were amazing at the time! ### 5/5 — The BEST! *2014-07-03, version 3.47* Fantastic game,amazing dev who updates the game constantly! I cannot recommend this enough! ### 4/5 — So many updates *2014-04-29, version 3.44* Not that I'm unappreciative, but this game has to have the most frequent minor updates that I really don't see on the surface. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — I love this game so much but *2026-02-11* The music and SFX are completely broken and have never once worked in all the time I've had this app installed. I want to play this but it's just not the same in complete silence. Can you please do something to fix the music and SFX and bring them back to life? **Developer response:** Sorry, I'm no long developing this app (I've found after working on an app ten years I can't stand looking at the code anymore, plus Unity was turning into a worse and worse company, don't know if you heard about that whole revenue sharing thing), that's why it's free now. But I just started HyperBowl up on my iPhone running iOS 26 and I still hear the sound, except if I have the silent mode switch on. ### 1/5 — Cannot exit the game *2020-12-29* Why are developers writing games with no way to exit the game without doing a hard reset. Is it to get customers to order more? For me it is just steering me away from Apple. **Developer response:** You can exit a current bowling game with the quit button in the pause menu, which you can bring up by pinching with two fingers on the screen (I didn't want to have a pause button on display the whole time). If you want a quit button that shuts down the app, well, google "ios no quit button" and you will see references about Apple discouraging that in their Human Interface Guidelines. I can't think of any app that has a quit button and same situation on Android. Any time you want to leave an app, use the Home button on the bottom of your phone. If you want to kill the process, double press the Home button which will show you all the apps still in session - tapping on one will resume it, swiping up will terminate the process. By the way, it is a sad fact of app development that ratings go down when you make an app free, so I will start charging for this one again. ### 1/5 — Hyper Bowl *2013-08-19, version 3.21* Big waste of $2.99 give my money back. ### 1/5 — Horrible *2013-02-28, version 3.10* I want my money back. You can't get the ball to go faster than a snails pace and it has to be pushed all the way down. Save your money! ### 1/5 — Such a rip off! *2012-05-20, version 3.03* When I was 3 I LOVED hyperbowl. But than when windows vista started in 2007 they had to discontinue the arcade edition. And than when I got my iPad and found this app while looking for a bowling app I was super excited. And then when I downloaded it,poop. It was nothing like it. Here are the things: 1. Tokyo vehicles. When I played on the Tokyo lane there were only cars on the bridge. And then when you go down to the city part it's kind of weird how there are no cars there in the main big part of the lane and yet all the sounds are still there it's just really unrealistic. 2. They added a new lane. Do you really need to add a new lane? I just think its rude to do that to a classic game. And if you want to add a new lane at least put some sound and effort to it. 3. San Francisco. Everything in this lane is horrible it is probably the worst lane in the game (well lets face it there all have no effort in them) the trolley cars are only going one direction and they don't bounce whenever you crash into them (it's the same thing with Tokyo cars) and the hill is way to hard to get up. 4. Scoring problems. PUT IN MORE EFFORT!!!!!!! -Zane kirk@kirkclyatt's son ### 2/5 — Wow.... *2011-06-15, version 2.6* It has so many bugs it freezes! and why only hd devices get Tokyo and San fransicso? Don't you find that unfair if we all pay $2.99 for a game that freezes all the time, and you still don't get tokyo and San fransicso? Fun at times.... but really freakin slow ### 2/5 — Funny but buggy *2011-04-03, version 2.2* Its a funny game but sometimes the ball freezes and you have to restart. ### 2/5 — Not as fun as the original (v 2.0) *2010-10-13, version 0* A good try but winds up short. Graphics are good but could be better. And what's with the pins??? When your ball hits, there is no impact sound, the pins fall limply down like wet noodles and do not impact each other. There is also no type of settings menu or any way to stop playing or switch lanes once you have started a game. ### 2/5 — High Seas for iPad only?!?! *2010-06-06, version 0* I do wish they would put High Seas for iPhone/iPod touch (besides they put High Seas on iPad) only:(, but why the heck only for iPad?! I'm not getting an iPad for no matter what! But, how do I unlock the High Seas level? Anyway, this is a great game with all lanes:) ### 3/5 — Sound *2025-11-12* Doesn’t have the sound I remember on the cd. Could be my phone, not sure. **Developer response:** I used the assets for the attraction/arcade version, so could be somewhat different from the original PC game. Or I might have missed something, as the scenes were hand-reconstructed in Unity (and often had to be fixed up after Unity upgrades). ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Robot *2025-12-08, version 5.06* Powerman ### 5/5 — Very cool *2025-10-27* Best game of bowling yet! **Developer response:** Hey, thanks! ### 5/5 — Memories *2025-01-06* The nostalgia in this game from my childhood of playing it on my family’s computer is unbelievable **Developer response:** Glad you like it! ### 5/5 — Take me back to when I was young *2024-11-15* Thank you for this. It’s not a 1:1 recreation and I do get stuck in a few of the lanes, but for a nostalgia trip, I’m glad this exists. Wish there was a remake of Labyrinth! **Developer response:** You're welcome! ### 5/5 — Fun game *2024-10-18* Love this game! It is super entertaining **Developer response:** Thanks, I'm glad you like it! ### 5/5 — Amazing Game! *2023-06-19* This game I played when I was going through hard times back then. It helped me relax and just have fun. I use to find so much joy when I found a new PC that had this game on it. Whoever made this for Mobile play thank you so much. Truly amazing and a job well done. **Developer response:** Thanks for your kind words! I really appreciate it and I'm glad you're enjoying the game. ### 5/5 — Love forever *2023-01-31* I’m 27 as of 2023, I grew up playing this on our old dell desktop from 2002, such nostalgia and love. My father got me into this game, he passed away awhile ago, even just playing this makes me think of him. **Developer response:** Thank you for this lovely review. ### 5/5 — Love the game, but… *2021-10-26, version 5.06* Needs an Android update. No longer works on the platform. ### 5/5 — Love it *2021-05-04, version 5.06* First purchased game in 2002, loved it then, just rediscovered it, shame it is not on PC......love it....love it....love it ### 5/5 — Nostalgic, Almost perfect *2020-12-19* I remember playing this via the Plus! version and later the Arcade Edition port. Seeing it on the App Store recreated with Unity is a real treat. The game is great, but it could be subtly improved with some tweaks. I’d suggest adding in a future update 1. a host of iPad related fixes. Add trackpad and keyboard support (it has been made possible with iPadOS 14 to implement this in games) and 120FPS mode for iPad Pros. 2. Add dynamic shadows on more maps like San Francisco and Tokyo. 3. Tweak High Seas. The original game had strong rocking on the ship, but this port tones it down to the point where it rarely ever helps or hinders you. There’s also a strange bumpy part of the ship that wasn’t present in the original but can really screw up a shot at the pins. There’s also a bug where trying to review the game within the app makes the text in the popup review window invisible. **Developer response:** Thanks for the detailed suggestions! Good to know about the new iPad features, I'll keep that in mind for future dev (currently taking a break from this Unity version after working on it for ten years! which is why it's free now but I've been contemplating trying out HyperBowl in a different engine like Unreal or Godot). I forgot that dynamic shadows aren't on in SF and Tokyo, I guess last time I checked the performance was still not quite there (especially with the pixel count on iPads) but in the past I would turn on features as the hardware (and sometimes the engine) improved. In 2009, all I had was the Classic lane running at 15fps! (Tokyo has six times the poly count as Classic) But over the years, I added shadows, bump maps...probably if/when I get back to HyperBowl dev, I can turn on shadows. I'm amazed you're the first person to comment on the mystery bump in High Seas (it bugs me too), it's an artifact of how for physics the ship is split into adjoining collision volumes I sometimes get bumping behavior at the seams. But the physics engines are performing so well now on the latest hardware possibly could just use the graphical mesh for physics, again a good note for future dev. As for the review popup invisible text, hmm, I hadn't heard of that before, I don't know if that would be a problem on the Unity or iOS side of things (HyperBowl calls Unity's RequestStoreReview function which calls the native iOS requestReview function...) --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-07.*