Penalty Kick

Overview: Penalty Kick is a game that allows players
to experience the thrill of soccer (football) on their
wireless phones. Your objective in Penalty Kick is to
kick the winning goal for your team. Players take turns
playing the kicker or the goaltender through a series
of five-round turns. The kicker must choose to kick
the ball upper left, upper right, lower left, or lower
right, while the goaltender must choose to defend primarily in one of these four areas. The player playing the kicker must also choose the skill level of the kicker, which will affect the accuracy of the kick. But the player has only a finite number of skill points to allocate, so he must choose them wisely. Score more points than your opponent and you are the winner.

Formats: WAP, SMS

Languages: English, Spanish

Game Play ‚ Single Player: After starting a single-player game session, the player begins by choosing whether to kick first or second in each round. Once the order is chosen, Penalty Kick is played in turns, where each turn has two sides. In the first side, the player plays the kicking team and the computer player plays the goaltender, or vice versa. In the second side, these roles are reversed. During each side, the player who plays the kicking team must choose two things: (1) the direction in which to kick the ball, and (2) the skill level of the kicker to use. The ball direction is one of the following: upper left, upper right, lower left, or lower right. The skill-level selection works as follows. The kicking team has an endless supply of average (level 0) kickers, but only a few "superstar" kickers (level 1 or 2). Each player will be given 4 "talent points" to use during the game when kicking. These talent points represent the use of superstar kickers, and the use of these points will improve the probabilities of scoring a goal. During sides in which the player plays the goaltender, the player simply chooses the area to focus on defending, i.e., upper left, upper right, lower left, or lower right. When both players have chosen their moves, the moves are compared to determine whether the kicker scores or not. The determination of whether the kicker scores or not is based upon (1) a comparison of kick direction versus area defended, (2) the skill level of the kicker, and (3) random luck. The kicking player scores a point whenever he scores a goal. Play continues in subsequent turns until the both sides of the fifth turn have been completed. At that point if one player has more points than the other, that player wins. Otherwise, play continues until one player has more points than the other at the end of a full turn. Entering Game Moves: In each round, the kicker and the goaltender both need to enter their moves. The kicker's move is entered as a two-letter sequence, optionally followed by a whole number between 0 and 2 (i.e., 0 or 1 or 2). The allowable two-letter moves are: 'll' or 'ul' or 'lr' or 'ur'. These stand for lower left, upper left, lower right, or upper right respectively. If the kicker does not enter a number after the two-letter sequence, then 0 is assumed by the game. Entering 1 or 2 increases the chance of the kicker scoring. However, the kicker can enter 1 or 2 only a limited number of times. Each time he enters 1 or 2, the number is subtracted from a starting pool of skill-points. When the available skill-points goes to 0, the kicker cannot enter additional skill points for the move. Examples: 'ur1' = upper right with one additional skill point 'll0' = 'll' = lower left with zero skill points The goaltender must also enter his move as a two-letter sequence. His move is simpler - there are no extra skill points. The goaltender just enters one of the four available move commands: 'll', 'ul', 'lr', or 'ur'.The letters in these commands are different in languages other than English. There is a Help screen/message available in the game itself.

Game Play - Two Player: In the two-player version of Penalty Kick, a virtual environment of rooms and lobbies is used to manage games between players. When a player first enters the Penalty Kick two-player version, the player is in the virtual Main Hall of this game environment. The player must move into a lobby and then into a room in this lobby in order to play a game. Penalty Kick has two distinct lobbies. One lobby is the "multiplayer arena" and is set up so that the environment itself will select an opponent for any player who enters this lobby. The second lobby has private rooms that a player can select specifically. The first lobby is appropriate for players who wish to "challenge all comers" while the second lobby is appropriate for players who wish to play against their friends. Penalty Kick provides players with multiple opportunities to move in and out of rooms and lobbies within this virtual environment.Once two players have entered the same room in this virtual environment, game play begins. Play proceeds the same as in the single- player version. However at the end of the game, the Penalty Kick high-score server records the winner of the game, and players are given an opportunity to send messages to each other.