How to play Accumulator
Climb 1 to 20 in order. You start on the 1; every dart that lands on the number you are aiming at moves you up one, and your next dart aims at the next number. A turn that never hits the number it started on sends you all the way back to 1. First player to clear the 20 wins on the spot. The run carries across turns — only a turn that misses your number ends it.
Chuck Darts scores this game to exactly the rules on this page, and keeps the card open mid-match so anybody at the board can check one. A full leg of 501, a board of Cricket and six practice drills are playable right now with no account at all.
THE LADDER
Twenty rungs, 1 through 20, in that order. Any ring counts: single, double and triple of your number all move you exactly one rung. A triple does not skip ahead. Three darts can take you up three rungs in one turn — S1, D2, T3 is three rungs — but only in order: a dart on the next number counts once your number is down, so on the 5, S5 then S6 climbs two rungs and S6 then S5 climbs one.
THE RESET
The reset is judged on the whole turn, not on each dart. Your turn has its three darts to hit the number you were standing on when it began. Hit it once and that turn cannot reset you, whatever its other darts do — on the 5, S5, a miss, then S6 leaves you on the 7. Miss it with every dart of the turn and you go back to 1. Anything that is not your number counts as a miss: a wrong number, the bull, a dart off the board, a dart that bounced out. A triple 20 while you are standing on the 19 ends an eighteen-rung run if nothing else in that turn lands on the 19. A turn entered with fewer than three darts is judged on the darts it has. Missing while you are still on the 1 costs nothing. ENTERING A TURN Dart by dart. The app will not accept a turn typed in as a total — a total cannot say which numbers you hit, and this game is nothing but which numbers you hit. A turn the app cannot read, or one still waiting to be confirmed in an online game, holds that player's ladder where it is: nothing after it counts until the turn is settled, and nobody can win the race on the darts while a ladder is held. It clears itself the moment the throw is confirmed. Ending the game with a ladder still held records a result all the same — see WINNING.
WINNING
First to clear the 20 wins, on the dart, and the game is over — there is no finishing the round. There is no tie: it is a race. If the host ends the game before anyone has run the board, it goes to the LONGEST unbroken run anyone managed, not to whoever is standing highest at that moment. If two players' best runs are exactly level, no winner is recorded — but the finishing order still is, starting at second, with level runs sharing a place and nobody first.
YOUR SCORE
The number the app records for you is your longest unbroken run this game. It is set when you reach it and it never goes down — a collapse costs you the ladder, not the record. Places second and below are ordered on that number, longest first, and level runs share a place.
ROUND LIMIT
The host can cap the game at a set number of rounds when creating it — a round is one turn for every player still in the game — and with the Round limit left off, nothing on this card changes. It is this app's option, not a rule of the game. With a limit set, the app takes no turn after the last capped round, and if nobody has cleared the 20 by then the game is recorded exactly as if the host had ended it at that moment: it goes to the longest unbroken run anyone managed, and if the best runs are level no winner is recorded.
UNDO AND THE PENCIL
Undo is the SAFE door on this ladder; the pencil is the dangerous one. Undo removes your last turn completely and replays the game without it, so a run that turn did not break comes back exactly as it was - undoing does not send you to 1. Correcting a turn to 0 is the opposite: a zero is stored as a turn of misses, and a turn that never hits your number costs the whole run and books a reset. So if you mis-tapped your last turn, UNDO it - do not pencil it to zero. A correction typed as a number is refused either way: this game is scored dart by dart. Correct it with the darts as thrown — typed T20 D10 5, M for a miss — and the ladder recomputes from those darts.
TIMED TURNS
If the host has set a turn clock in an online ranked game, running out of time is recorded as three misses — your ladder goes back to 1. That turn is the clock's own record: it cannot be undone or corrected afterwards, by you or by the host. If someone has to leave, the host — or that player themselves — can take their seat out of a live game, as long as two players are left at the board: the app refuses a removal that would leave one player throwing alone, so a two-handed game has to be ended instead. The app keeps the seat in the running order so everyone else's turn order holds, but nothing more is scored for or against them: their board stops where they left it, and they are placed after everyone who finished. It cannot be undone, and Rematch will not bring them back: it carries only the seats that were still in, so start the next game and add them to it yourself.
PLAYERS
Two to eight is what the game is built for, and one player can climb the ladder solo.
HOUSE RULES THIS APP DOES NOT PLAY
No governing body publishes this game, and no published rulebook uses the name Accumulator for it — it is this app's name for a ladder built on Around the Clock. Chuck Darts plays 1 to 20, any ring counts, the bull is always a miss, and a turn that never hits your number sends you back to the 1. That reset is the one published description of this ladder — hit the number with your three darts, or start again from the beginning — and the app has played it since 29 September 2026. Before that it reset on every single bad dart, which no published source describes; a game finished under that rule keeps the result it was given. Common alternatives you may have played elsewhere: restarting on the first bad dart rather than on a whole turn; falling back one rung instead of all the way to the 1; counting only the plain single of the number, so a double or triple does not move you; and finishing on the bull after the 20 rather than on the 20. If your venue wants one of those, agree it out loud before the first dart — the app will still score the version above.