Rules for the Bowling Dice Game

Traditional bowling requires a bowling alley. You can transport the thrill of bowling to your home through the Fundex Bowling Dice Game. This game represents rolling a bowling ball by rolling 10 dice and recording your score. Just like in standard bowling, each player competes to get the highest score after 10 turns, known as frames.

To play the bowling dice game you will need 10 dice, a cup to hold the dice and a sheet of paper to keep score. Most of the spaces on the dice are blank or have a picture of a bowling pin, but some include an X which represents a strike or a / which represents a spare. Each player gets two rolls of the dice on his turn.

Use the cup to roll all 10 dice on the first roll. If any of the dice show an X, the player gets a strike on his first roll, counted as knocking down all 10 pins. If there is a slash which is a spare on the first roll, it counts as a pin standing instead of a spare since you can't get a spare on your first ball in bowling. If a player does not get a strike, count the number of blank dice and remove them. This is the player's score for the first ball.

Place all the dice that either had a pin or a slash on them on the first roll into the cup and roll them. If any of these dice show a slash, this is a spare and counts as knocking the rest of the pins down regardless of what shows up on the other dice. An X counts as a pin standing as you can't get a strike on the second ball in bowling. If the player does not get a slash on a die, count the blank dice; these are the number of pins she knocked down on her second ball.

On the scorecard, there should be 10 squares for each player. In the top half of each square write down the number of pins knocked down on the first turn and then the second turn, if a second turn was required. In the bottom half record the player's score. Players receive one point for each pin knocked over. If a player gets a strike, he gets 10 points plus the score from his next two rolls added to that 10 points. Three strikes in a row scores 30 points because it's 10 points for the strike plus 10 points for each of the next two rolls. If a player gets a spare, she gets 10 points, plus the point total from her next roll. If she gets a strike on the roll after her spare, it's 20 points which is 10 points for the spare and 10 points for the next roll.

Each player gets 10 turns, or frames. Add the score for the current frame to the score that was written down at the end of the previous frame. This avoids having to add up all the frames at the end of the game. The player with the highest score is the winner.