Zero In
Hold still and the ring closes in.
What it is
Darts at a standard board, hung on a pine-panelled wall and drawn to the World Darts Federation’s measurements: double and treble rings 8 mm wide, bulls 12.7 and 31.8 mm across, and every scoring line the middle of a 1.27 mm wire, so a dart on a wire scores the bed on its side. Three darts a turn.
Touch and hold where you want the dart, and a ring shows where it could land. Hold still and the ring closes in until it turns amber; move and it widens again. Then flick up to throw. Every dart lands inside the ring you saw: it goes from where your finger rested, with the ring as it stood the instant the flick began, and the ring stays on the board for a moment, dashed, so you can see the dart land inside it.
Two games. In Around the Clock you hit 1 to 20 in order, and the single, double or treble of the number all count. In 501 you count down to exactly zero and finish on a double or the inner bull; go below zero, leave 1 or reach zero without a double and it’s a bust, and the score goes back to where the turn began.
Play alone, take on the computer at 501, or pass the screen among up to four. The computer throws through the same code as you, with a ring of its own. It has three levels, gentle, steady and sharp: beat it and it plays a little better next game, lose and it plays a little gentler.
How to play
- StartTouch the board
- AimTouch and hold, keep still
- ThrowFlick up
- Change gameAround the Clock or 501, at the top
Touch the board to start Around the Clock; that first touch already has a dart in hand. A magnifier shows the board under your finger. A slow push, a sideways one or a lift without a flick puts the dart down, and the status line says which. For company, tap + Player 2: tap to join before the first player’s second turn; at 501 against the computer, tap Two players? Tap here on its row before it throws. Partway through a game, changing game takes a second tap. The speaker at the top right turns the sound on. Put the phone down mid-game and it waits for you: nothing takes your game away.
On a desktop, point at the board: the ring shows under the pointer and closes in while it rests, and a click throws. A click with no ring under the pointer picks the dart up instead. Or use the keys: with no ring on screen, Space brings one up at the bull, and an arrow key brings it up a step from the bull. The arrow keys move the sight 2 mm at a time, or half a millimetre with Shift, and Space throws. Enter plays again from the result, M turns the sound on and off, and Escape puts the dart down; with the mouse, it stays down until you move the mouse or click.
What isn’t settled yet
How quickly the ring closes, and how much a moving hand widens it, come from a model of a steady hand, not yet from many people’s hands.
What counts as a flick may still change.
Two games only: Around the Clock and 501. No Cricket, and no other count-downs.
No checkout hints. At 501 the game never suggests how to finish.
Players have no names: You when you’re the only person playing, otherwise Player 1 to Player 4, and Computer.
The computer plays 501 only. One person at Around the Clock plays alone, scored in darts.
Build Log
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Build 3
A dart can no longer leave from a ring that was never on screen. A click or Space with no ring drawn now picks the dart up instead of throwing it, and for someone playing with the mouse, the ring comes up under the resting pointer as soon as a turn begins. Worth writing down: the promise is that every dart lands inside the ring you saw, so every way of throwing has to show the ring first.
Credits and licences
No third-party engine — it draws to a plain canvas. The typefaces it does use are embedded under the SIL Open Font Licence, with the copyright notice retained in the shipped file. Cover drawn from the game’s own board, dart and ring code.
Zero In is original work by Launchway Games.