Pocket Games
Flick Soccer
Flick Soccer is the tabletop football of button games: three discs a side, one ball, and a shot you take by dragging your finger backwards like a slingshot. The game is all in the angles — the ball bounces, and anyone who keeps that in mind scores twice as often.
How to play
Each team has three discs. You drag backwards on the disc you want to shoot: the further back you pull, the harder it goes. The disc strikes the ball, the ball bounces off walls, posts and opposing discs. First to three goals wins.
The discs start in one of three line-ups:
- Triangle: one pushed up in the middle and two back on the flanks. Balanced.
- Wall: three in a row across your half. Defensive: hard to get through, but you are exposed up front.
- Attack: two forward and only one back. Scores sooner, and concedes sooner.
On Pocket Games
You play against the bot, at three levels, or two players on the same phone. You do not pick the line-up: each game one of the three is drawn at random, the same for both teams and mirrored.
| Level | How the bot shoots |
|---|---|
| Easy | Picks a random disc and shoots towards the ball with very rough aim. |
| Medium | Picks the disc best lined up between ball and goal and shoots almost straight. |
| Hard | For each disc it tries 10 shots, 5 angles by 2 power levels, simulates them all and keeps the one that scores or brings the ball closest to your goal, ruling out own goals. |
- The shot: the further you drag, the harder it goes, up to a maximum. Drag too little and the shot is cancelled, so you can try again.
- After a goal the ball sits in the net for a second, then every piece goes back to the starting line-up and the side that conceded kicks off.
- Who starts is random; if you play again from the end screen, the other side starts.
- Two players: the pitch rotates 180 degrees each turn, so both always shoot upwards. The rotation can be switched off from the in-game menu.
- Game in progress: saved between shots, with score and positions, and resumed from the start screen.
- Stats: against the bot, wins and losses per level are counted, on the device only. There are no draws.
How to shoot
Power is almost never the answer. A full-force shot sends the ball ricocheting around the pitch and leaves it wherever it likes, often in front of your own goal. The medium shot, which takes the ball where you want and leaves it there, is worth much more.
Aim where the ball will go, not where the disc meets it. The ball leaves along the line joining the centre of the disc to the centre of the ball: clip it and it goes sideways. That is the only piece of geometry you need, and it lets you angle shots deliberately.
Use the walls. The ball bounces predictably: a shot sent into the side wall arrives at the goal from an angle your opponent’s back disc does not cover. It is the standard way to score when the middle is shut.
Play the return. If you do not have a clean shot, do not shoot at goal: move one of your discs to a better position, or clear the ball out of your own half. A turn spent tidying up is a goal not conceded.
Opposing discs are walls too. A bounce planned off a defender is often the only way around the wall formation.
Defending
You do not defend by stopping the ball, you defend by holding the line. Always keep a disc between the ball and your goal, preferably centrally: the angles can be covered with small movements, the middle cannot.
The classic mistake is sending everything forward after conceding. With the attack formation it is worse still, because you start exposed: there the back disc is the last one you want to move.
Frequently asked questions
Is the bot strong?
On easy, no: it shoots almost at random. On medium it always aims at goal, but does not work out rebounds. On hard it simulates its shots before choosing, so it finds goals off the walls too, but it only looks at where the ball ends up after its own shot: it does not anticipate your reply. Leaving the ball in front of your own goal is the quickest way to lose.
Can I stop the pitch turning every turn?
Yes: in two-player games you switch it off from the menu during the match, and the choice is remembered next time. From then on the red discs shoot from the top downwards.
Who kicks off?
In the first game it is down to chance. After every goal the side that conceded restarts, with every piece back in its starting position. If you play again from the end screen, whoever did not start last time starts.
Can I stop a game and pick it up later?
Yes. The game is saved when the pieces are still, between one shot and the next, with score and positions, two-player games included. Next time you find it on the start screen.
Do games count towards an online record?
No. Against the bot wins and losses are kept per level, and they stay on the device; two-player games leave no stats.
More games to try
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