How to use Nakka Online Darts
Updated: Aug 27
If you have played online darts, been in a Discord league, or watched a mate track their averages, you have almost certainly come across "Nakka". It is the most widely used free scoring platform in amateur darts, and it is also one of the most misunderstood. This is How to use Nakka.
So before we go anywhere near the buttons, let us clear up what it actually is, because most guides you will find online get this part wrong.
First, the name - How to use Nakka
The software is called n01. It is written by a Japanese developer known as nakka, and the desktop original lives on nakka.com. The web version, which is what nearly everybody uses now, is at n01darts.com/n01/.
"Nakka Darts" is what the darting world calls it. It is not the product name, and there is no company called Nakka Darts with a support desk. That matters when you go looking for help, which we will come to at the end.
Second, and more important: n01 does not score for you
n01 is a scoreboard and a statistician, not an auto-scoring system. You throw at a real board, you look at what you hit, and you type it in. There is no camera, no sensor, no clever ring detecting your darts. If you want automatic scoring you are looking at a different category of product entirely.
That sounds like a limitation. As a coach, I think it is the opposite. Typing your own score in makes you count, and counting is a skill most club players are quietly poor at. Every session on n01 is a session of mental arithmetic under mild pressure. Take the free reps.
What is actually on the menu
Go to n01darts.com/n01/ and you get a menu, not a game. The options are:
n01 for Web: the scoreboard itself, played on your device and private to it
n01 Online: the lobby where you find a live opponent anywhere in the world
n01 Tournament: brackets, run by anyone, free
n01 League: league tables and fixtures
n01 Live: your local game relayed out to n01 Online so people can watch
n01 for Windows: the original desktop program, still downloadable
Knowing which one you want saves a lot of confusion. Nine times out of ten, for practice, you want n01 for Web.
There is also a paid n01 app on the iOS App Store from Nippon Algorithm Co. Ltd. Be aware that it is an old, offline scoring app, last updated in 2020. The web version is free, better and where all the development has gone. Use the browser.
Setting up a game in n01 for Web
Open n01 for Web and you land straight on the new game screen. No account, no sign up, no email. This is the bit the internet guides consistently get wrong: you do not need to register to use the scoreboard.
Here is what you are looking at:
Game type. Two buttons, 01 and Cricket. That is the real choice. 301, 501 and 1001 are not separate game modes, they are just starting scores.
Start Score. Type any number you like, or use the quick buttons for 301, 501 and 1001. Want to practise a 170 finish over and over? Start the game on 170. Want to work on your 501 opening? Leave it alone.
Player Name. Enter yours. Add a second player for a proper game.
COM. This is the underrated feature. You can set either player as a computer opponent across twelve difficulty levels. Level 1 is a beginner. Level 12 will punish you. Pick a level slightly above your current standard and it becomes a pace-setting tool rather than a novelty.
Practice Mode. Turns the scoreboard into a solo practice tool, with an option to also enter your remaining score so you are forced to do the subtraction yourself rather than reading it off the screen. If you only take one thing from this article, take that setting.
Limit Rounds. Caps the game at a set number of rounds. Useful for scoring drills where you care about points per visit rather than who wins.
Handicap. Set a handicap for either player so a stronger player and a weaker one can have a contest worth playing.
Overkill. Labelled "Disable scoring when 200 points ahead". Stops a runaway leg from carrying on pointlessly.
When you are happy, you press Game on. Not "Start Game". Small thing, but if you are following a guide that says "Start Game", that guide has never opened the software.
Playing a leg
The scoring input is the part people get wrong most often, and it is the part that decides whether your stats are worth anything.
You enter the total for the visit, not each dart. Throw your three, add them up, type the number, press Enter. The remaining score updates. Sixty is one entry of 60, not three entries of 20.
You must enter zeros. A busted or missed visit still needs a 0 typing in. If you skip it, the throw order and the round count drift, and every average the software gives you afterwards is wrong.
Checkouts are where the accuracy lives. When you finish a leg you can enter the final score or press Finish, and n01 will ask you how many darts you used for that checkout. Answer honestly. A three-dart average is total points divided by darts thrown, so if you claim a 40 checkout took two darts when it took three, you are inflating your own average and lying to your future self. Coaches can spot a padded average from a mile away, mostly because the player's scoring does not match it.
You can step back to the previous round, so a mistyped visit is fixable. Fix it there and then rather than trying to correct it later with a compensating entry.
Playing someone else online
n01 Online is the lobby. You sign in with a social account (Facebook, X or Google), set your player name, and you are into a list of people looking for a game. Each player's running three-dart average is shown, so you can pick an opponent who will actually test you instead of one who will bury you or be buried.
Two things worth knowing:
Webcam is optional. The setting is literally "Use WebCam (n01 Online only)". Plenty of casual matches are played without one. If you are playing anything that matters, use it, and expect your opponent to.
It is not a shared link. You do not generate a URL and send it to a friend, which is what several guides claim. You meet in the lobby, or you meet inside a tournament or league bracket.
Running competitions
If you organise for a club, a Discord community or a county side, this is where n01 quietly beats everything else at the price.
n01 Tournament is at n01darts.com/n01/tournament/. You press Create, choose your format (single elimination, double elimination or round robin), give the tournament a name and a participation password, and set the number of players. You then share the competition URL. Players either sign in with a social login or enter the participation password. When entries are in, you press Make Bracket, use
Automatic assignment to seed it, then Next (In Session) to start. Players click their own cell to launch their match, scores get entered, and the bracket advances itself as results land.
n01 League does the same job for a season rather than a night.
Schedule Mode, inside the scoreboard, is the one that league secretaries love. You build your card of games in advance, each with its own subtitle, start score and format such as first to two legs, and the scoreboard rolls on to the next fixture automatically as each one finishes. Ideal for a full match night of singles and pairs.
n01 Live relays whatever you are scoring out to n01 Online so people can watch. Give the game a Title that starts with your club or league name and it becomes findable.
What to do when something goes wrong (How to use Nakka)
Refresh the page. That solves most of it, and unlike the old desktop software the web version keeps up with modern browsers.
Beyond that, understand what you are dealing with. n01 is free software from a small developer, not a subscription product with a helpdesk. There is no support ticket queue. The official tutorials at en.n01darts.com cover tournaments and leagues properly, and the fastest real-world help is your league's Discord, where somebody has already had your problem.
If scores look wrong, the cause is almost always human: a missing zero, or a checkout entered with the wrong number of darts.
How I would use it as a coach
Three habits, and they are worth more than any feature list.
One. Turn on Practice Mode with remaining score entry, and count your own outs. You will be surprised how much of your finishing problem is arithmetic rather than aim.
Two. Track your first nine darts, not just your match average. Your opening three visits tell you far more about your scoring form than a figure dragged around by a lucky 141 finish.
Three. Be ruthlessly honest with the dart count on checkouts. The number only helps you if it is real. An average you have flattered is an average you cannot plan around.
n01 will not fix your throw. It will tell you the truth about it, cheaply, every night you use it. That is a very good place to start.
Want someone to read those numbers with you?
I coach players online and face to face from my studio in Worcester, and I am Sight Right qualified. If you are logging averages in n01 and want to know what they are actually telling you, and what to do next about it, come and have a session with me at DartsMatt.com. Any questions about How to use Nakka, please let me know.
