About Cowboy Quick Shot
A Western-themed reflex game that turns your phone into a six-shooter. Hold it like a holster, wait for the signal, draw fast.
Cowboy Quick Shot is a motion-controlled iOS game that measures your reaction time in milliseconds. You hold your iPhone pointed downward at your side — like a gun in a holster — and when the app signals "draw," you flip your phone up as fast as you can. The faster you are, the faster you shoot. It's silly, satisfying, and surprisingly competitive.
Built by HarmonyAstroApps, an independent iOS developer shipping focused apps for iPhone and iPad.
Why this game exists
Reaction time is fun to measure, and Western duels are a perfect frame for it. Most reflex apps ask you to tap a button when the screen changes colour. That works, but it's boring. We wanted something more physical — a motion you actually make, not a tap you fake.
So Cowboy Quick Shot uses your phone's motion sensors (accelerometer + gyroscope) to detect the moment you flip the phone upward. That's a real draw. Your time includes everything: perceiving the signal, deciding to move, and the full arm swing. It's the closest a phone can get to a real quickdraw.
What we care about
Quick sessions
One round takes under 15 seconds. Perfect for a bus stop, a coffee line, or the 30 seconds before a meeting.
No ads mid-round
We don't interrupt gameplay with ads. Rounds are short enough that they don't need to be gated.
Honest timing
Motion-based measurement is real. No cheat detection needed because the clock starts on the signal and stops when the phone is upright.
Social, not addictive
Duels and score-sharing exist; infinite-scroll leaderboards do not. Play, compare, put the phone down.
How it works, technically
Cowboy Quick Shot uses Apple's Core Motion framework and the device's accelerometer plus gyroscope. When you start a round, the app watches your phone's orientation. When it sees a clear "holster" position (pointed downward) it arms the round. A randomized delay later, the "draw" signal triggers and the timer starts. When the phone crosses a threshold of upward motion the timer stops, and your reaction time is computed in milliseconds.
Because motion sensors update many times per second, the measurement is accurate to within a few milliseconds.
Who built this
HarmonyAstroApps is a small independent iOS developer. We build simple, focused Swift/SwiftUI apps and read every support email. Other apps include Voice Calculator, Voice Clock Time Speaker, Skymap, and Flight Mode Chat.
Get in touch