Arrow Ace

Arrow Ace is a free archery game you play right in your browser, on a phone or a computer. You look down a sunny target range through your bow's sight, with a straw boss and a gold, red, blue, black and white face waiting at the far end. Press and hold to draw the bow and the view zooms in, drag to put the sight where you want it, keep still for a moment while the sight settles, and let go. The arrow flies down the range, thuds into the face and stays there, and the ring you hit pops up in its own colour. It is the classic bow and arrow game with real target scoring, from a 1 in the white to a 10 in the gold and an X for the inner ten.

The skill is in reading the range. The arrow drops on its way to the target, a little at 20 metres and a lot at 90, so you hold the sight higher the further away the target stands. The wind pushes the arrow sideways too: the flag and the arrow in the wind gauge show which way it blows and how hard, in miles per hour, and you aim off into it. Every round of three arrows moves the target further back, changes the face (40, 60, 80 and 122 cm), raises the wind and slides the target along a rail so you have to lead it, and it starts at once: by the third round the target is 50 metres away. Your arrows stay in the face for the whole round, so the first one shows you exactly how far to correct the next.

The sight is never perfectly still. It sways a little while you hold, settles when your finger or mouse stays still, and a breath ring around it shows how long you can hold before your arms start to shake. Release while the sight is calm and on its mark. Each ring scores ten points per ring, an X scores a bonus, and every 10 in a row adds a growing streak bonus. A rival archer shoots alongside you on the scorecard every round: beat their total for a round bonus, tie it for half.

Endless has no clock and three lives: an arrow that misses the face or scores below the round's minimum costs a life, and three tens in a row win one back, while the minimum climbs from 3 to 8 as the range gets longer and windier. Already in the third round an arrow aimed straight at the gold drops below it, so read the range from the start; after a weak arrow the game tells you which way to correct. A ninety-second version of the same range, where you shoot as many good arrows as you can, is one of the games The Daily can deal you, which puts Arrow Ace among our quick games too. Your best run goes on the weekly and all-time leaderboards, and top runs are replayed and verified on our servers first, so Arrow Ace sits naturally with our competitive games.

The controls are the same everywhere. On a phone or tablet, press and hold anywhere on the screen, drag to aim and lift your finger to shoot; slow moves nudge the sight a little and quicker ones swing it further, so small adjustments are easy and your thumb never covers the target. On a computer, do the same with the mouse button (a short drag reaches even the farthest target), or hold Space and steer the sight with the arrow keys, which speed up as you hold them, then release Space to shoot, and press P to pause Endless. Nothing is timed between arrows in Endless: take as long as you like. It plays just as well on mobile and PC, with nothing to install.

Arrow Ace is one of our sports games and aim games, and a good pick if you like target shooting, darts or golf, where one calm, well-judged shot beats a hundred hurried ones. Find more free online games with no download across the site.