An archery game with wind, sway and distance

Bullseye Archery is the archery game in Games by Zaweba, and the wind is very much part of it. You shoot six ends of three arrows at 18, 30 and 50 metres, with a bow that sways as you breathe, arrows that drop over distance and a fickle breeze shown by a flag. The app is free and plays offline on Windows.

A perfect round is 180, ten points for every arrow in the gold. Getting anywhere near it takes a steady hand and a good eye for the flag.

Drawing and loosing

Point with the mouse, press and hold to draw the bow, then let go to shoot. The bow moves gently as you breathe, so the sight never sits perfectly still. Hold Space to hold your breath and the aim settles. There is a catch, as with a real bow: hold it drawn too long and your arm tires, so the longer you wait, the worse it gets.

The rhythm that works is to draw, let the sway settle onto the target, hold your breath for the final moment, and loose. Hesitating at full draw is the most common way to throw away points.

Reading the breeze and the drop

Arrows drift with the wind shown by the flag, and they drop over longer distances. At 18 metres you can aim almost straight at the gold. At 30 metres you start allowing for both. At 50 metres the wind and the drop together can carry an arrow right out of the scoring rings if you ignore them.

Aim off, which is the archer's phrase for aiming to one side of the target so the wind brings the arrow back. Look at the flag before every arrow, not just every end, because the breeze is fickle. If an arrow lands low and to the left, the next one wants to be aimed high and to the right by about the same amount, provided the wind hasn't changed.

Scoring and getting closer to 180

The rings score from 10 in the gold down to 1 at the outside. Each end is three arrows, and six ends make the round. Treat each end as a chance to correct: the first arrow tells you what the wind is doing, the second and third use that knowledge. Many players find their first arrow of each end is their worst and their third is their best, which is a sign they are reading the target well.

Your best score is kept on the game's tile along with how often you have played, so you can watch your total creep up as you learn the longer distances.

Where to find it

Bullseye Archery is on the Skill & sport shelf of Games by Zaweba, which holds 17 games with wind, wobble and luck to beat. Press Ctrl+F and type archery to go straight to it. The title card sets out the rules and controls, F1 explains them again during the round, Esc pauses and F11 gives you the full screen, which makes the 50 metre target much easier to read.

There are no adverts and no accounts, and nothing goes online. Your scores stay in a file on your own PC. If you enjoy the held breath, Pub Darts uses the same idea on a pub dartboard, and Long Drive asks you to read a crosswind on a golf driving range.