Penalty Kick Showdown is a retro soccer shoot-out with chunky pixel players, a cheering crowd and chiptune sound. Each side takes five penalties, and you switch between striker and goalkeeper after every kick. As the shooter, you choose a spot and time a swinging power bar. As the keeper, you pick a zone to dive to before the ball is struck. It began as PaDi Shooter 89, a father and son’s first game, and you can play it against the computer or a friend.
How to Play Penalty Kick Showdown
On the setup screen, enter up to two names and pick a team for each side. You can choose a national side or one of the invented clubs, and the team’s colors appear on the shirts. In one-player mode you also set the CPU level to Easy, Normal or Hard.
When you shoot, nine glowing targets cover the goal in a three-by-three grid. Tap one, then watch the power bar swing between 1 and 100 percent. Tap again, or press Space, to lock it in and kick. A harder shot flies faster and is harder for a keeper to reach from the next zone over.
When you are in goal, tap the zone you want to dive to before the shooter picks a target. A shot into your chosen zone is always saved. After five rounds the side with more goals wins. A tie leads to sudden death, one kick each until someone is ahead after an equal number of attempts. Your results go onto a leaderboard saved in this browser.
Penalty Kick Showdown Controls
| Action | Keyboard | Mouse | Touch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pick a target or a dive zone | — | Click one of the nine zones in the goal | Tap a zone in the goal |
| Lock the power bar and shoot | Space or Enter | Click anywhere | Tap anywhere |
| Continue after a goal, save or miss | Space or Enter | Click | Tap |
| Mute or unmute | M | Click the note button (top right) | Tap the note button (top right) |
| Leave the match | — | Click Menu (top left) | Tap Menu (top left) |
Tips and Strategies
- Charge it up. Power never causes a miss, so lock the bar near the top of its swing whenever you can.
- Know the miss odds. A shot to the very center almost never goes wide. A bottom corner misses about 7 percent of the time, and a top corner about 13 percent.
- Test the CPU keeper high. It dives to the top row less often than to the middle or bottom rows, so a top shot is less likely to be guessed.
- Never go soft. If the keeper dives one zone away from your shot, a full-power kick is stopped about one time in ten, but a very weak one about one time in five.
- Hide your dive from a friend. In two-player games the keeper locks in a zone before the shooter aims, so the shooter must look away.
Features
- One or two players: face a three-level CPU or pass the device between friends.
- Shoot and save: every round swaps roles, so you play both striker and keeper.
- Sudden death: tied matches keep going until one side pulls ahead.
- Saved leaderboard: your past results stay in your browser, with a button to clear them.
- Sound made in code: whistles, crowd noise and music start after your first tap, with a mute button.
Tested and updated:
