AR Darts Pro, like its name suggests, is an augmented reality darts game developed using ARKit (according to the app’s page on the AppStore).
I have to admit that I am quite turned off by AR darts game, because I tried a few ones like Darts of King, including some Archery games and many of them were really bad. I eventually found myself enjoying an archery game like AR Archery, which was among the few target shooting games that I actually enjoyed playing. AR Archery isn’t a Darts game but it gave me that type of accurate slow-paced shooting experience that I wanted to play in AR.
A few days ago I came across AR Darts Pto. I’ve downloaded it for me, but when I look at the US App Store I see that it’s paid version again, so I don’t know what’s going on. Anyways, I’ve downloaded it and decided to give it a shot.
How to play AR Darts Pro?
AR Darts Pro places a standard dartboard with a wooden backboard in your place. It has three game modes: 301, 1000 and Training. Training is just for enjoying throwing darts. 301 is the same as dart game 301 rules where you need to get to zero and the last hit end with a double, bullseye or bull to win the game. If you pass zero it’s a bust and you need to try again. In 1000 you must hit the bullseye (50 points, the most inner circle) or bull (25 points, the outer circle around the bullseye) to score.
There is also a timer that measures how much time it takes you to win and a global leaderboard where you can compare your timing to others. Of course, the faster you are able to win, the better the results, thus you will appear higher in the global leaderboard.
Gameplay Experience
The look of the gameboard is nice, same goes for the sound effects, quite authentic overall. I personally don’t like flicking/swiping in darts game, but if the controls are nailed right, I can enjoy it.
I’m actually playing Darts of Fury, which is probably the most popular Darts game for iOS right now with very high-rating and 12.5K total ratings. It’s not an Augmented Reality game, but it’s definitely a superb darts game, my favorite so far. The controls are fun and accurate, it has league progression system, unlockable content and other cool stuff, it also looks amazing.
After playing a game like this and going to play AR Darts Pro, you ask yourself: “What am I doing, why do I need this crap?”. AR or not AR, to make a game like this work and to deliver a great gameplay experience, you need more than just a nice AR scene.
AR Darts Pro controls are very sparse and inaccurate. you can’t really make that fine-tuned shot and repeat it, even if you can, it’s hard and it doesn’t come close to the great gameplay control of Darts of Fury.
Of course, it would be so cool being able to play Darts of Fury in AR, but I imagine that if any similar experience like this comes to AR, it will by Yajuto, the developer of Darts of Fury.
OK, now back to our game. As I said, the game controls don’t feel that good, but they are not too bad either. So it’s not a catastrophe like Darts of King or worse, like AR Darts Challenge (yes, I know about the grammar mistake in the banner, but I am too lazy to fix it :)).
I guess that with a bit of practicing you can get used to the controls and be more accurate with your throws, but still, it just feels way off than how proper dart game controls should be. The thing is that you just can’t ignore this thing, the game controls are everything in this game because the only thing that you do is throw darts, nothing more.
Conclusion
AR Darts Pro is yet another unexciting and quite bad AR darts game. The only positive thing that I can say about this game is that it wasn’t as bad as the other ones that I’ve tried. If you are not looking particularly for a darts game, you might want to try AR Archery, it a great archery AR game.
However, if you are looking for an augmented reality darts game, I have nothing to recommend here. You can try this game because it’s probably one of the better ones out there in AR, but better doesn’t mean that it’s good.
Take it for a ride and see if you like it or not. If you are really into playing darts, I recommend trying the non-AR alternative, until a good AR darts game come along and I will be the first to let you know about it.
P.S., there is a nice feature where you can choose to put an image on top of the board. I put my logo. Nice feature, I liked it.
Download AR Darts Pro from the App Store here.