Yes. Bowfall runs free in any modern browser on desktop, tablet or phone, with no download, no install and no account. The twenty-five match campaign, the endless challenges after it and the online duels are all included.

Drag from your archer and let go, like a slingshot: the direction you drag is the direction the arrow flies and the distance you drag is the power. That is the only control the game needs, so one finger or one hand is enough. Number keys 1, 2 and 3 switch arrowheads, D ducks and S steadies your aim; the same buttons sit under the screen on touch. Nothing draws the flight path for you: the nocked arrow stands in front of your archer and points where the shot is going, and Steady — a few times a round — is the only thing that marks the landing point.

Because that is the design. Arrows do modest damage to bodies on purpose — the killing is usually done by the fall. Look for the pale binding holding his plank, his hoisted stone or his pavise, cut that, and everything it was carrying comes down. A headshot still hits several times harder than a body shot, so it is worth taking, but it is a bonus rather than the plan.

He did not fall far enough. Damage from a drop starts above a landing speed the game derives from a fixed threshold rather than picking by hand, so a short fall bruises and a long one kills. On the flat Drill Yard nobody dies from a fall at all; on the high stands one cut ends the round.

A broadhead is the best cutter and you have unlimited ones. A bodkin is heavy: it punches through a pavise and through plate armour that would skid a broadhead off, and it staggers harder. A fire arrow burns rope outright instead of cutting it, which is the dependable answer to a hoisted stone, but you only get fire once the brazier is lit and only a few arrows a round. Bodkin heads unlock after you have cut enough lashings, fire coals after enough headshots.

Each round ends when one archer goes down, and the first to three rounds takes the match. Losing costs you nothing permanent: the sinew you earned is yours, upgrades bought at the quartermaster stay bought, and you can take the same match again.

The quiver is limited each round — ten shafts, more as the endless ladder goes on, and only five under the Scarce challenge. Spent arrows are gathered back between shots, so a wasted shaft costs you tempo rather than the round, and the gathering pause is exactly when your rival gets a free shot.

Yes. Open the menu — it greets you the moment the game loads, and the pause button brings it back any time — and pick Online duel. Quick match pairs you with another player through a relay for the same three-round duel on the same arenas, with the same physics as the campaign. If nobody joins a quick match within ten seconds the duel starts anyway against a stand-in challenger drawn from the same skill range as the campaign ladder, so the lobby never stalls. Private room codes — Create a room for a code to hand out, or Join a room and type in the one a friend sent you — are never filled that way: there you are waiting for one particular person, and the archer who made the room starts the duel whenever both of you are ready.