Penalty Shootout is a pixel soccer game that skips the full match and goes straight to the tensest part: spot kicks. You can play Penalty Shootout unblocked against the computer or a friend sitting next to you. Blocky players, a roaring crowd and chiptune tunes give it an old arcade feel. The game was first released as PaDi Shooter 89, a first project by a dad and his son.
Setting Up a Match
Before kickoff you can enter player names and choose who each side represents. National teams are sorted into World Nations and European Nations groups, and there are made-up clubs in the Pixel League and Arcade Cup. Kits change to match your choice. Solo players also choose how strong the computer is: Easy, Normal or Hard.
How to Play Penalty Shootout
Both teams get five attempts, and you alternate between taking the shot and guarding the net. A banner before each kick shows the round, such as ROUND 3/5, and who is shooting. All five rounds are always played, even if one side can no longer catch up.
On your shooting turn, the goal is split into nine glowing squares, three across and three down.
- Choose the square you are aiming for.
- A meter starts sweeping back and forth from weak to full strength, taking a little over half a second each way.
- Stop it with a click, a tap, Space or Enter, and your player strikes.
Stronger kicks travel faster and are harder to reach, and they can never fly off target. Wide shots depend only on the square you aim at. The dead center and bottom middle stray only about 2 percent of the time. The side squares and low corners go wide roughly 7 percent of the time, the top middle about 8 percent, and the high corners about 13 percent.
Playing in Goal
When you defend, you pick a square to dive toward ahead of the kick. A shot into that exact square is a guaranteed save. Diving one square off can still work, mostly against weak shots, but high shots are harder to reach even then. Anything farther away and it’s a goal.
Once both teams have taken five, the higher score wins. Level scores mean sudden death, where each side shoots once per round until one side leads.
How the Computer Plays
Each difficulty changes three things about the CPU:
- How often its keeper reads your shot. On Easy it almost never does, on Normal about one kick in five, and on Hard about two in five. When it doesn’t read you, it makes a hidden guess that leans toward the middle and bottom rows.
- How hard it shoots. Easy kicks range from feeble to full power, while Hard kicks are almost always strong.
- How it reacts to your dive. The smarter the setting, the more often the CPU striker aims at a corner far from the square you picked as keeper.
Penalty Shootout Tips
- Stop the meter near the top. Extra power has no downside, so aim for a strong kick every time.
- Think about the corner gamble. High corners are tough to save but go wide most often.
- Shoot high against the computer. The CPU keeper picks the top row less than the others.
- Never tap a soft one. With the keeper one square off, a full-strength kick is saved about 10 percent of the time, while a feeble kick is saved about twice as often.
- Expect the far side on Hard. The CPU striker often waits to see your square, then shoots at a corner at least two squares away from it.
- Keep your dive secret. In local multiplayer, the goalie commits first, so the shooter should not peek.
Mistakes New Players Make
The classic one is stopping the meter early out of nerves, which gives the keeper a better chance with nothing gained in accuracy. Another is aiming for the top corners every time. They are the hardest squares to save, but at 13 percent they go wide more than six times as often as a middle shot, and over five rounds that adds up.
Sound and Devices
The whistles, chants and music are all generated in code and kick in after your first tap. Press M or hit the music note in the upper corner to silence it, which is polite in a quiet room. Mouse, keyboard and touch all work, so it runs on phones as well as Chromebooks. A full match takes only a few minutes, which suits a short break.
For another sports pick that rewards careful aim, try Gravity Golf, where you bend shots around planets. Free Throw swaps soccer for a 60-second basketball challenge with a hoop that moves. Browse more on the sports games page.
