Penalty Kicks

🎮 About This Game

Penalty Kicks is our take on the purest mind game in sports: a full penalty shootout, five kicks a side, sudden death if it's level. What makes it different from most penalty games is that your aim is public. The kicker steers a glowing crosshair around the goal mouth and the keeper watches it the whole time — the crosshair only vanishes at the instant the ball is struck. That one rule turns every kick into a bluffing contest: park your aim in one corner, wait for the keeper to lean, then flick across goal in the last tenth of a second. Power matters too — an oscillating bar trades shot speed against accuracy, and a max-power blast can miss the frame entirely. Play a solo shootout against three CPU levels, or put a friend on the other end of the keyboard and settle it properly.

🎯 How to Play

Each kick is a duel: one player aims and shoots, the other guards the goal. As the kicker, steer the crosshair anywhere in the goal with the Arrow Keys and press Space to shoot — the power bar oscillates on its own, and you lock in whatever it shows at the moment you kick. As the keeper, shuffle along the line with ← →, then hold a direction (add ▲ for a high dive) and press Space to commit to a dive — or press Space alone to stand tall and guard the middle. In 2-player, Player 1 uses WASD + Space and Player 2 uses Arrow Keys + /. A six-second shot clock keeps kickers honest. Five kicks each, then sudden death. P pauses, R restarts, Esc exits to the menu.

💡 Tips & Strategy

• ▸The last-instant flick is the core skill: aim at one corner long enough to sell it, then snap the crosshair across goal just before you press kick. The keeper only ever sees where your aim was.
• ▸Ride the power bar's sweet band — roughly 65 to 85 percent. Below it, your shot floats and even a wrong-way keeper can recover; above 85, the scatter can throw your shot off target entirely.
• ▸As keeper, decide before the kick whether this is a read or a reaction. Committing to the kicker's habit side saves far corners; waiting and reacting only catches slow, central shots.
• ▸Don't dive every time. Standing tall covers the middle with a bigger reach than a dive does — against kickers who love the top corners, staying home steals kicks.
• ▸The CPU keeper reads your crosshair on a delay, so smooth, early aim gets punished most. Against Hard, note that it also reads your aim's momentum — a slow drift toward the corner is exactly what it expects.
• ▸In sudden death, kick first in your head: pick your corner during the walk-up banner and commit. The players who lose shootouts are the ones still deciding when the shot clock hits three.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions