Arrow Range

Arrow Range puts you at the shooting line of a midsummer fair. The meadow runs away up the screen, mown in stripes, with straw bosses on wooden trestles at eighteen, thirty and fifty metres, striped marquees and bunting down both sides, apple trees, a castle on the hill and a rope line of villagers who cheer a gold and groan at a miss. You see the bow the way you would see your own: the stave in your fist, the string coming back past your cheek and the sight ring floating out on the range.

Press and pull back to draw. The further you pull, the fuller the draw, and a full draw is what puts the arrow where the ring is pointing — let it down early and the shaft drops short, badly short at fifty metres. Move your hand to aim and the ring moves with it. Hold a full draw too long and the bow starts to shake, so the good shot is the one you take while you are still steady. A wind sock stands beside the range and the wind changes with every end; at eighteen metres a stiff breeze costs you a ring or two, at fifty it will carry the arrow clean off the straw unless you aim off. Arrows thud into the straw and stand there for the rest of the end. The face scores ten to one from the middle out, with an X for the very centre, and a shaft touching a line takes the better ring, exactly as a judge would call it.

Five ways to shoot. Target Round is six ends of three arrows across the three distances, out of a hundred and eighty, with your best round remembered. Moving Targets swings apples on strings, rolls logs across the grass and walks a cart of straw bosses down the meadow. Balloon Pop gives you sixty seconds on a rising field of colour, and popping the same colour twice running doubles what it pays. Knockout puts you against three fair archers at Easy, Normal or Sharp, and the lowest score each end walks off the line. Pass and Play hands one bow round two to four archers with their own names. Three bows sit on the rack — a steady hunting bow, a fast yew longbow and a horn recurve with a pin sight that reads the wind — and the better two open up as your target round improves. Touch, mouse and keyboard all work, the range fits itself to a phone held upright or a wide screen, P pauses and M mutes.