Penalty Shootout

Penalty Shootout is a browser football game built around the single moment that decides cup finals: one player, one ball, one keeper, twelve yards. You drag from the ball toward the corner you want and let go: the direction picks the spot and the length of the drag sets the power. There is no run-up minigame and no power meter that sweeps back and forth on its own — everything you need to decide is in one gesture.

Two things happen while you hold the drag. Your aim settles: the dashed ring around your target shrinks over the first half second, so a shot released instantly sprays wide. And the keeper reads you: the bar under the ball keeps filling as he works out where you are looking, and a keeper who has read you dives early and correctly. Once the ring is tight there is nothing left to gain by waiting, so the habit to learn is simple — steady, then shoot. How much he picks up in that half second depends on who is in goal; the reader learns the most from it.

Power is the third lever. A hard shot reaches the goal before the keeper can extend, so it beats a keeper who has read you — but power widens your scatter, so the harder you hit it the less you can trust the corner you picked. A placed shot into the side netting is almost unsaveable if he guesses wrong, and almost always saved if he guesses right. Deciding between the two against a specific keeper is the skill the game teaches.

The first cup, the Harbour Cup, is a ladder of clubs, and the keepers are not the same man at rising difficulty — each one behaves differently and each has a clear counter. The reader studies your aim while you hold the drag, so shoot sooner. The diver ignores your aim entirely, picks a side and goes early, so the middle is open. The stayer guards the centre and reacts late but stretches further, so take a corner. The mirror covers whichever side you shot last, so switch. The rusher charges off his line and closes the low angles, but leaves the top of the goal exposed. Because each is beaten by a different shot, the answer that got you past the previous round is usually the wrong one in the next, and the game tells you which keeper you are facing before the first kick. The cup run moves through three stadiums — a harbour at night, a storm-lashed ground and a floodlit final arena — and some matches bring a condition of their own, such as a crosswind, a wet pitch or a tired keeper.

Winning the Harbour Cup takes you on to the Continental Cup, and winning that to the World Cup. Each starts a little easier than the final you just won, then climbs. Neither is the first cup with bigger numbers: each brings keepers you have not met and tricks from their kickers that change how you keep goal. In the Continental Cup the giant owns the top of the goal but is slow to get down, so keep it low; the feinter leans to one side to show you a gap and then dives into it, so shoot to the side he leans. Their kickers start to stutter in the run-up so the early lean lies, some swing their hips at the last moment so the early lean is the honest one, and a quick whistle gives you a ring of time to shoot before you are forced into a weak kick. In the World Cup the gambler jumps the way you first move your drag, so start one way and finish in the other corner; the chameleon changes style every kick and the game names it, so a shot down the middle, a low corner or a high corner has to be chosen again each time. Scouts go missing, takers look the other way, and square hips mean a chip down the middle. The cups are bronze, silver and gold, each pays more coins and Composure than the last, and the World Cup puts a star on your shirt. After that the cups keep coming: each new cup draws its keepers from the ones you have already met, makes them a little sharper and brings its own conditions, so there is always a next match.

There is a third thing you can do besides aim and shoot: tap the ball itself instead of dragging and your taker fakes a shot with a stutter in his run-up. Keepers who commit early — the diver and the rusher — bite, and go to a side before the ball is struck, which leaves the other half of the goal open and means they can no longer read you. Keepers who wait do not bite at all, and the pause simply gives them longer to study your aim. So the stutter is a real question with a real cost, and the answer depends entirely on who is in goal.

Each round is five kicks each, taken in turn: you shoot, then you go in goal for their taker and tap where to dive. Commit early and you reach further; wait and his run-up gives away more of where he is aiming; never dive and the ball goes in. It goes to sudden death if it finishes level, and the match you reached is saved on your device. Goals and saves earn coins, and coins buy Composure: press Steady before a kick and, for that one penalty, your scatter shrinks and the keeper reads you more slowly. Online 1v1 in the Cup menu looks for another player for the same head-to-head shootout. If you like games that hang on a single well-judged input, try Marksman or Eight Ball next.

Drag from the ball toward a corner: direction sets where in the goal it goes, distance sets power. Release to shoot. A plain tap anywhere is a quick kick toward that spot: it never waits for your aim to settle and stays away from the top corners, so it is the easy shot, not the best one. A tap on the ball itself fakes a shot instead. The dashed ring is your accuracy and it settles within half a second. The bar beneath it is the keeper's read, and it keeps growing for as long as you hold. Wait for the ring, then shoot. On a keyboard the arrow keys aim, Space shoots (straight down the middle if you have not aimed), B fakes a shot and E uses Composure; on their kick the arrow keys pick your dive and Space dives to the middle.