Bowl-Ed Over (found Cartoon Network Power Play game; 2003)

Title screen of Bowl-Ed Over.

Status: Found

Date found: 27 Mar 2020

Found by: abandonwaregamerz

Bowl-Ed Over is an Ed, Edd n Eddy-themed bowling game released for the PC in 2003 through CartoonNetwork.com's "Power Play Games" service for $19.95.^[1] It is a simple bowling game using characters, audio, and settings from the Ed, Edd n Eddy television show. The game was developed in Adobe Director for Shockwave, which has great reverse compatibility on modern Windows versions, but because of the ActiveMARK DRM that was used to protect it, it wouldn't run on anything later than Windows Vista.

Power Play Games

In order to compete with Nick.com's Nick Arcade (not to be confused with the television game show of the same name), Cartoon Network New Media (the division in charge of the CartoonNetwork.com website) created the "Power Play Games" service. Unlike the traditional Shockwave and Flash games on the Cartoon Network website at the time, Power Play Games were standalone executables that the user could download and play at any time without an internet connection. Potential customers could play time-restricted demos of these games, or purchase the full versions for a one-time fee. The service was criticized by fans for making once-free games suddenly require purchasing to play such as To the Eds-Streme! and Dexter's Labyrinth. As the service continued, new games were created specifically for the service such as Bowl-Ed Over.

Bowl-Ed Over

Bowl-Ed Over is a fairly simplistic bowling game with an Ed, Edd n Eddy skin that can be played by up to four players using the same keyboard. The player(s) can choose between two lanes and can customize their bowling balls across three stats: weight, speed, and spin. Power points can be accumulated by scoring strikes, which can be used to modify these stats. Complete bowling ball and lane availability are currently unknown as the demo may differ from the purchased version of the game. The demo is limited to ten minutes of gameplay before the player is locked out.

Availability

As Shockwave games lost their appeal through the years, the Power Play Games service became defunct along with the games that were available. Luckily, the download link to the Bowl-Ed Over demo executable was archived on the Wayback Machine. Later, TOMYSSHADOW removed the trial time limit and made the game playable on modern Windows computers.

Extraction of some of the Bowl-Ed Over demo executable's files is available on a Google Drive as well. It is currently unknown if the contents of the purchased version of Bowl-Ed Over differs in any way from the demo executable besides the 10 minute time restriction.

On October 16th, 2016, YouTuber joman66 uploaded a video showing that he had managed to get the game working on his Windows XP tablet.