Darts!

Darts fly alternately right on target or beside the board, depending on how long you hold down the key. Back in the nineties, this was one of the few things PC offered instead of an actual pressure bottle and a pull on the neck.

Darts! is exactly what it looks like — a simulator of the classic English board with digits from one to twenty, spinning in screen detail. The game runs on MS-DOS and its ambitions are clear: copy the rules of practice throws and competitive matches, build simple physics, and let players compete against the computer. Nothing more, nothing less.

The mechanics revolve around one simple thing — pressing a key determines throw power and direction. The computer then calculates where the dart lands. It's primitive by today's standards, but it has logic. Shots aren't random; it's not a casino. Lower screen resolution means the board takes up almost the entire space, so you see every detail — every number, every colored zone. The sounds are system beeps we'll laugh at today, but back then it seemed solidly functional.

Everything good about the nineties lands perfectly on this board — it was right there, between Wimbledon tournaments on the wave and the first chat rooms, when everyone played anything against a computer, even if it ended in code after roughly a month of development. I remember Darts! more from nostalgia and curiosity about what DOS would say to turn it into a sport.

Today there's no reason to play Darts! instead of a modern simulation with more realistic physics and better graphics. But if you're looking for the magic from the time when the board behind a keyboard was the closest alternative to a pub where you could play it in your browser. The inability to get rid of that repeated sound when the dart aims at the board — there's a strange charm in that.