Devil Darts Review 
By Allen Gall, Copyright 2002
Revised 12/30/2002
Allen is available for freelance writing projects involving Pocket PC software and hardware, everything ranging from press releases to documentation.  If you have a project, e-mail me and we'll chat.

Genre: Action
Developer: DeepVibe
Abstract: Play against demons in this lush game that playfully simulates the game of darts.

Although many people dismiss it as casual entertainment, the game of darts requires a considerable amount of skill, and serious games even require some strategy.  Still, darts is one of those athletic activities, like team sports and running, that often doesn't translate well onto an electronic device, especially a handheld with limited a small screen and limited input options. 

The first thing that you'll notice when loading up Devil Darts the first time is the quality of presentation.  After the status bar indicates that game has finished loading (the load time can be a bit lengthy, especially the first time you load it up), you're taken to the main menu, where you can select opponents, set game options, and start the game.  This screen has some spooky background music, and the entire game has the stylish, tongue-in-cheek feel of a graphic novel from an obscure, independent art studio.  (The game was originally developed on the Mac by software engineer Jason Kravitz, who enlisted the aid of two graphic artists to revamp the graphics for the Pocket PC version.)  The comic book approach suits the game well--after all, how silly is it to play darts in Hell? 

Before starting a game, you'll need to select your opponents.  You can select up to three (from a collection of six), and the game presents several computer-based "devil" characters you can play against.  These characters look as good as what you'd find in pretty much any modern comic book, but they're not just eye candy--all are ranked on a percentage basis according to two factors: accuracy and strategy.  The quality of these two values ranges from middling to quite good, allowing you to have a nice mix of skill levels in the game.  You can also play against yourself or another human opponent (networked play is not supported). 

Two modes of game play are offered, cricket and oh-one.  In both, you're given a certain number of points initially and the player who hits 0 first wins the game.  Both play a bit differently and have subtle rule variations you can adjust via the game's options screen.  If you're not familiar with either, suffice it to say that both require a lot more skill and strategy than simply seeing who's better at hitting the bullseye. 

The most interesting parts of the game are the control method and game play.  The dart board itself takes up the largest section of the screen.  You throw a dart by first selecting the horizontal posiition of your player (represented by a graphic below the board), then selecting the thrust and angle of your throw by pressing down twice with the d-pad (You press down to select thrust and down again to select the angle; visual indicators are displayed for each).  Since you score by hitting certain areas of the dart board, control is essential here.  I found the input method to be fairly intuitive but probably more difficult than throwing a dart in real life.  Since the game doesn't accept input from the stylus and makes you quickly press the d-pad, I found there was a "twitch" factor that sometimes made throws almost seem like a matter of luck than skill; I didn't quite feel like I was in charge.  I'm fairly adept at throwing darts in real life, but I found myself struggling a bit to throw the dart where I wanted it to go.  I would prefer a stylus-driven gyroscope input method like the one used in ZioSoft's golf games (which is borrowed from the terrific interface used in the Links games on desktop PCs) or perhaps something like the

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