Today I came across a game called AR Archery. It’s a single-player and multiplayer archery game developed from the ground up for Augmented Reality.
If you follow my reviews you’ve probably seen that I was very disappointed with the archery ARKit games that I’ve got to play. I tried ARchery and the gameplay experience was really bad..
Since then I’ve searched for better Archery AR games but couldn’t find any game that was worth my time, until I came across AR Archery.
It’s great to see a developer that takes an ARKit project and put a great effort to make it looks and play great. The game was developed by Mintah Games. This isn’t its first mobile game. Among its other games, you can find Runner Jack, Ape of Steel 2, Block Boy Brock, Archery Gold and other games.
So what is AR Archery?
AR Archery is a first-person single-player and multiplayer AR archery game. You use a bow and arrow and try to score as high as possible by landing shots on a bullseye target in front of you.
The game features several games modes: Quickplay, Place & Play and a Multiplayer game mode powered by Skillz. Skillz for those of you who don’t know is a mobile eSports platform that can be integrated into iOS and Android games. The company operates cash competitions in mobile games of skills.
The quickplay deploy a target in front of you. You have 10 shots to try to maximize your score. A bullseye shot grants 10 points and you score 1 point less for each outer ring the further it is from the center.
The quickplay features some sort of a metal clockwork-style rail which the target is traveling on. It’s a nice idea and make the game look and feel different than any other archery game that I’ve played before. That metal frame is placed in mid-air, so you don’t need to scan any surface to play this specific game mode.
Quickplay has several different rail design so it plays differently every time you play it.
Furthermore, unlike all the other, sorry to say that, but useless archery games where you can shoot the target from point-blank range, AR Archery doesn’t allow you to cheat. You need to be located at an adequate distance in order to shoot. The game will notify you when you are too close to the targe. If you are, the game will pause until you position yourself back to an adequate distance from the target.
Place & Play is another single-player game mode where you can place a wooden bullseye target on the floor and shoot it. You can resize, rotate and position it anywhere you like, but the same game rules apply here: you have 10 shots and there is a minimum distance from the target the player is allowed to shoot from.
Before we move on, let’s take a look at some gameplay.
The multiplayer game mode is where the real fun begins. This is an online multiplayer game mode with automatic matchmaking, and unlike some other MP games where you play with or against another player side by side, here you get to see which side won after both players have finished their turn. You don’t get to see the other player playing, just see his score after both of you have finished your turn. The same rules apply to the multiplayer as well.
This mode is similar to the quickplay, where the target moves on a rail to make it harder for the player to be able to hit the target.
You start the game with X amount of Z coins, which is the currency that allows you to compete in challenges versus other players. The game has a matchmaking system that pits you against players with the same skill as you. There are various types of challenges which you can compete in, the most basic one (“Novice Archers”) cost 1 coin, whether more advanced ones cost more. The more expensive the challenge, the harder it gets. By harder, I mean that the target will move slightly faster, it will travel a more complex route and the wind will be stronger. I’ll talk more about it in the next section.
Game’s Difficulty Factors
The difficulty depends on several factors. The first one is related to the speed, direction and the rail’s structure that the target is moving on. The second one and probably most significant one is the wind.
AR Archery features wind physics that directly affects the arrow\s direction. The wind changes in each shot. The harder the challenge, the stronger the wind.
Trust me, it’s very important to pay attention to the wind. One time I’ve got a very strong wind that I needed to aim the arrow way above the target in order for the arrow to travel to the center of the target. Both those factors make it difficult to hit the center target. You can actually see how the arrow changes its direction while traveling towards the target.
There is also a cool feature that shows the last shot in slow motion, which is usually the one with the strongest wind. So once you release a shot, It’s really cool to see how the arrow is changing its direction in the air before it lands on the target.
At the end of each match, you can see the score and the wind direction and speed for each shot you’ve taken during the match. The game remembers you highest score as well in order to motivate players to keep improving their results.
I don’t know how many players are playing the game, but I was able to find a match pretty quickly—that’s great!
The controls in this game are very simple. All you have to do is to swipe down to pull the arrow back and release to shoot. The longer you pull the faster the arrow’s speed. I’ve seen such bad implementation of this gameplay mechanic in other AR archery games, and I am so happy to see that this game nailed it right. The bow and arrow are positioned on the right side with the right size and location to make it feel like an authentic first-person archery experience.
Redeem Tickets for Prizes
The game also features a store where you can redeem earned tickets to purchase items from the store like shirts, phone covers, mugs, Mophie Juice Pack, BenQ 24″ gaming monitor, Caribbean Cruise and up to a Porsche Boxster! but keep in mind that you’ll need millions of tickets for the most expensive prizes. The Porsche Boxster costs 925M!
The game also has Leagues where players can win Z coins as prizes. The Skillz framework definitely added more depth to the multiplayer game that encourages players to improve their skills and improve their results. Players can also reach new tiers by earning Ticketz, each level has an increase Ticketz multiplier.
The eSport aspect of the game definitely helps to increase the replay value times fold and no wonder why I was able to find a multiplayer match so fast.
There are also lost of trophies that reward the player with more Z-coins.
The game also features customization options. Players can unlock new Bow, Guard, Arm and Grip items using coins.
Augmented Reality Experience
AR Archery plays and feels great in AR. The game can be played anywhere you are. You can even play it while sitting on the bad or in the toilet. There is an ‘eye’ button that allows you to reposition the game in front of you at any given time. The target in the Place & Play can be rotated, moved and scaled and you can always at any given time reposition it.
The music, sound effects, visual effects, high-quality graphics and animations, precision controls and haptic feedback—all help to deliver a great gaming experience.
This is an AR Kit game, which means that you’ll need a compatible device to play it. The developer recommends playing it on an iPhone 7 or a newer device for the best gameplay experience.
I was playing the game on my iPad 2017 without any issues. The game felt smooth with very little jittery caused because of the floating gameplay area, but nothing that negatively impacts the gameplay experience, just some minor annoyances every now and then.
Conclusion
Honestly, I didn’t expect to come across such an excellent archery ARKit game. I was thrilled to find out that it also features a multiplayer mode. This makes all the difference in the world. I wish there was an option to see the other player playing and playing the game in turns like the mobile game Darts of Fury for iOS. It still doesn’t feel like a true multiplayer game when you need to wait to see the results of the other player. This is something that I would like to be improved and I think that there isn’t any restriction that can prevent this game to play like that.
In some ways, I think that it could have been even more interesting with more unique designs for the level, not just the clockworks-style ones. I also think that a more aggressive touch of arcade elements won’t hurt this game. After all, it’s just all about shooting targets and I think after some time the game can become a bit tedious. Maybe adding a new endless arcade game mode where things are more frantic and vibrant. This can create a more energetic gameplay experience.
Of course, it’s important to emphasize on the things that the game does really well. The physics, the controls, the AR experience, the fair gameplay constraint, the sound effects, the visuals, the difficulty, the game modes, the trophies, etc— all done really well and help to deliver a great gameplay experience. I haven’t even mentioned yet that the game is free to play. This is the type of ARKit game that I want to see on the App Store. Games that look and feel complete and not ones that look like they were taken out from an ARKit development book for beginners—Great game, Highly Recommended!