How to play
ARCHER DUEL is an archery duel drawn like an old woodcut print, with carved lines, ink outlines and a ringed sun. Two archers stand on stone pillars on opposite sides of the screen, and the first to bring the other down wins.
To shoot, press anywhere with the mouse or a finger, drag back, and release. The further you drag, the more power the shot has, and a dotted line shows the arc your arrow will fly. A very short drag is ignored, so a stray tap never wastes an arrow. The button at the bottom left opens the menu and the one at the bottom right mutes.
Where you hit matters. A head shot does 45 damage, the torso 24, a leg 14 and an arm 12. Arrows stick where they land, and a limb that is struck goes limp for a moment. When an archer goes down, they collapse as a ragdoll in slow motion while the camera closes in.
Tips and strategy
- Find the range first. Your first arrow tells you a lot. Note where it landed and adjust the drag length and angle for the next one.
- Aim high. A head shot does close to twice the damage of a torso hit, so it is worth going for once you have the range.
- Do not wait too long. In the ladder, your rival shoots in real time. Your bow is ready again 0.85 seconds after each shot, while early rivals need well over two seconds, so a steady stream of good-enough arrows wins the race.
- Read the wind. From stage 3 there is wind, shown at the top of the screen with an arrow for its direction. It pushes on the arrow for the whole flight, so long, slow, high shots drift the most. It grows stronger stage by stage until stage 9.
- Watch the heights. Each pillar is a random height, and in the ladder the rival's pillar is set a little higher as you climb. Shooting uphill needs more angle than it looks.
- Heal between stages. After a win you get back 40% of the health you lost. You do not start fresh, so a clean win matters more than a close one.
What's in it
1P LADDER is a climb through stage after stage of real-time duels against computer archers. Each rival has a name, from Hob the Thatcher and Widow Rook at the bottom to Crook of Fenmoor and The Last Yeoman at stage ten, after which the names come round again. Every stage, the gap between the pillars widens, the rival gets more health (82 at stage 1, rising by 12 a stage), aims more tightly, reloads faster, hits a little harder and goes for your head more often. Your best stage is saved.
After each win you choose one of three perks, drawn at random from eight. Taking the same one again stacks it:
- Heavy Heads: your arrows hit 25% harder.
- Iron Cap: head shots against you deal 40% less.
- Quick Nock: reload 30% faster.
- Thick Hide: 30 more maximum health.
- Twin Shaft: each shot fires a second arrow just behind the first, at 70% damage.
- Red Thirst: heal 6 for every hit you land.
- Hawk Eye: a longer aiming guide.
- Field Mend: heal fully now, and heal half as much again between stages.
2P DUEL is for two players taking turns on the same screen, Red against Indigo. Each player gets one arrow per turn, the wind changes every turn, and a running score is kept between duels until you go back to the menu.
Behind the game
Arrows fly on simple, honest physics: gravity pulls them down and the wind pushes them sideways the whole way. Your drag sets both the angle and the speed, and the dotted guide is the real path, worked out the same way the arrow will fly. That is why the guide is short on purpose.
The computer archers do not cheat, and they do not guess either. Before each shot they work out the exact arc that would hit you, wind included, and then miss by an amount set by their skill. Early rivals miss by a lot and take their time. By about stage ten their aim is close to its sharpest and their reload is down to about a second and a quarter, so the later stages are a true shoot-out. Each rival also picks, shot by shot, whether to go for your head or your body, and the chance of a head shot rises as you climb.
The archers are built from a jointed body, so a hit pushes the struck part, and a finishing hit sends the whole figure tumbling as a ragdoll.
Questions
Do I need an account?
No. Your best ladder stage is saved in your browser. Clearing your browser's site data clears it.
Does a ladder run carry on if I close the tab?
No. Only your best stage is kept. Each run starts again at stage 1 with no perks.
Can two people play?
Yes, in 2P DUEL, taking turns on one device. There is no online play.
Can I play on a phone?
Yes. It is played by dragging, so a finger works just like a mouse. Hold the phone sideways for the best view.
Is it violent?
It is a duel with bows. Arrows stick in the archers and defeated archers collapse as ragdolls with ink splats, all in a black-and-white print style with no realistic blood.
Does it flash?
No. There is a little screen shake and a short freeze on hits.