Penalty Cup.

How to play Penalty Cup

1. Pick a mode from the menu. Practice and the Academy challenges are a good place to learn the swipe.
2. Press on the ball and swipe toward the goal. Let go where you want the ball to go.
3. Swipe smoothly for about a quarter of a second for perfect pace. Quicker is harder and higher; slower is softer.
4. Bow the swipe to curl the ball round a wall or away from the keeper, and snap it at the end to make the ball dip.
5. Check the wind compass and the flags, and aim into the breeze. Rain makes low shots skid.
6. In goal, wait for the kick. Click or tap where the ball is going, inside the dashed reach arc, to dive once.
7. Score more than the other side over five kicks each, then in sudden death. Win your group and three knockout rounds to lift the cup.

Make your move

About Penalty Cup

Penalty Cup is an original browser football game about set pieces. You take penalties and free kicks, then switch roles and keep goal against the other side. The stadiums, players, kits, flags and sounds are all made in code for this game, and the nations are invented. Everything loads only after you press Play, with no account, download or advert between kicks.

The players are original 3D athletes, modelled from a script in Blender with a 22-bone skeleton and drawn through the same camera as the ball, so a taker seen from behind on the spot is the same body you see from behind the goal or side-on in a replay. Their motion is computed live rather than played from canned clips, so it fits every run-up, aim and dive. Kit patterns, numbers and badges are painted onto the shirt for each nation, and every surface is shaded by the low sun, the cloud or the floodlights. Each player has his own build, skin tone, hair and boots. After placing the ball the taker walks backwards to his mark, settles, and runs in with every foot planted on the turf and his arms swinging against his legs. His standing foot lands beside the ball about a tenth of a second before contact while the kicking leg draws back from the hip with the knee bent, and the boot meets the back of the ball on the frame it leaves the spot. A power drive carries him onto his kicking foot, a placed shot is side-footed, a curler wraps round the ball and a chip scoops under it, and then he celebrates or holds his head.

Shooting is drawn. Press on the ball, swipe toward the goal and let go. The point where the swipe ends is where you aim, and a short flick is carried on in the direction you swiped. How quickly the swipe covers the way to the goal sets the power, so the same gesture works on a phone or a large monitor. A smooth swipe of about a quarter of a second lands in the gold band, and its bright middle is a perfect strike with extra pace. Quicker swipes blaze high and wide, and slower ones roll gently at the keeper. A meter beside the ball shows where you landed, and a card after the strike gives the speed off the boot and the type of shot.

Spin comes from the shape of the swipe. Bow it to one side and the ball takes on sidespin, setting off along your bow and bending back in, which is how you curl a free kick round the end of a wall or away from the keeper. Speed up at the very end of the swipe and the ball carries topspin, so it rises over the wall and dips under the bar. A soft swipe to the top of the goal is a chip with backspin. A hard, perfectly straight swipe hits the ball with almost no spin, and it knuckles, wobbling a little in the air in a way nobody can predict exactly. If you prefer a meter, the locker room switches to Aim and hold, and the keyboard always works that way: aim with the arrows, curl with Q and E, dip or chip with C, then hold and release Space.

Under the hood the ball is simulated at a fixed rate. It feels gravity, air drag that grows with speed and rises sharply once a slow ball drops below about 50 km/h, as a real match ball's does, a Magnus force from its spin and the wind blowing past it. In still air, a clean strike still lands exactly where you drew it, so the aim is fair, and the wind and any knuckle then carry it away from that line. On the turf the ball bounces and skids until its spin catches up, and it rolls further on a wet pitch. The posts and crossbar are round, so a ball that clips the inside edge can go in, one that hits square comes back out, and one that grazes the top of the bar flies over. The net is an elastic pocket that soaks up the ball and bulges where it went in, and a wide shot can ripple the outside of the side netting.

Computer keepers never see your marker. They react after a human reaction time and read the flight, better at higher levels, although curl and a knuckleball can fool the first read. Others gamble before contact on their style, on the corners you used before and on what your run-up shows. A placed side-foot shot opens the body, while a driven one hides it. Every keeper has a limited dive reach and speed, so a well-struck top corner is out of reach. You can see it in his body: he crouches with his arms spread and his palms to the taker, takes a small hop as the taker plants, accelerates off his near foot and reaches for the ball on an arc with the top hand coming over to join the bottom one. He times the dive to meet the ball, and at full stretch he falls to the turf rather than hanging in the air. His body is the hitbox, so a visible miss is a real miss, and a ball he catches stays in his gloves as he gets up over his knees. When the ball arrives the result depends on where it meets the body: a soft ball at the chest is held, a hard one is parried, a glancing touch on the fingertips only bends its path, and wet gloves can spill it.

In goal you see the taker wait at his mark for the whistle, then run up and strike. On Amateur a gold ring shows the intended corner during the run-up, on Pro it appears at contact, and on Legend it only marks the rough area. A dashed arc shows how far your dive can reach, and you get one dive toward the point you click or tap. Dive too early and good takers pass the ball the other way, and a dive that starts too soon lands before a slow ball arrives. Computer free kicks come in at real pace, so watch the curl over the wall and go as it dips. You can also watch the taker's run-up for a hint, the same one the computer keepers read. Keyboard players can steer a marker with the arrow keys and press Space, or dive straight to a zone with the number keys laid out like a keypad.

Every ground has its own weather. Harbor Park has a sea breeze that shifts between kicks and passing showers. Sunset Terrace fades into night, and its floodlights switch on in the middle of a shootout. Millbrook Lane gets wetter as the match goes on, Alpine Ground plays in falling snow, and two floodlit bowls host the late rounds. Roof pennants, corner flags and an on-screen wind compass show the breeze, and rain makes the pitch slick. The light changes the shadows, from a long evening sun to four soft floodlight shadows. The crowd fills up as the tournament goes on: a half-empty afternoon group game gives way to a packed final with flags, flashes and fireworks. Each half of the stands jumps when its own side scores or saves. On low quality settings, and with reduced motion, the weather, flags and flashes are scaled down or switched off.

The World Tournament draws the nations into eight groups of four by strength. Every group match is a shootout with five kicks each, an early finish when a lead cannot be caught, and paired sudden death after that. A win earns three points, and the top two of each group reach the round of sixteen, then the quarterfinals, semifinals and final. Only your matches are played, and an unfinished tournament waits for you on the menu. Quick shootout lets you pick any two nations, a stadium and a level, or hand the device to a friend. The Training ground holds thirty challenges in three sets, every one checked by a test pilot to confirm that three stars are possible. The Daily Five gives everyone the same set pieces for the day, and Practice has five spots with an optional keeper and wall. After any kick you can watch a replay from three angles with the flight traced through the air. Progress, bests, settings and any tournament in progress stay in this browser, and earlier Penalty Cup cups and bests carry over.

A little help for your next high score

• A perfect-pace swipe ignores the nerves ring that appears in big moments. Practise the quarter-second rhythm.
• Aim a little inside the post. The posts are round, so a ball that clips the inside edge goes in, but a square hit comes back out.
• Against a wall, a slower swipe lifts the ball over it, a bowed swipe bends it round the end, and a late snap brings it down in time.
• Read the scouting note before a match. A keeper who guesses early is beaten by a chip; a keeper who studies you punishes the same corner twice; a driven shot gives less away in the run-up.
• In the rain, low shots skid off the turf and keepers spill more. In goal, wait for the strike: good takers watch for an early dive.

Good questions