An overview of the Penalty Shootout game and the game campaign setup process.
Game overview
Penalty Shootout is a casino-style game in which players take penalty kicks to try to score goals. After each attempt, an animation shows whether the player scores or misses. The player wins a prize if they score enough goals from their available shooting attempts.
You configure this game across the following tabs in your campaign:
Games: Player activity and prize data.
Prizes: Prize configuration, weighting, and goals required.
Time Slots: Daily availability windows.
Texts: In-game and system messages.
Assets: Images and animations used in the game.
Editor: Visual layout and positioning of game elements.
Campaign Settings: Campaign name, timezone, dates, shooting attempts, play limits, and segments.
Two settings determine the outcome for each player:
Shooting Attempts: The number of penalty kicks a player takes in the game. You configure this in Campaign Settings, from 1 up to 10 attempts.
Goals Required: The number of goals a player must score from their shooting attempts to win a specific prize. You set this individually for each prize in the Prizes tab.
Regardless of how many shooting attempts you configure, the likelihood of a player winning a prize is determined by the prize weight and the customer segment they belong to. For more information, see Prizes in Penalty Shootout below.
The game comes with a ready-to-use template, which you can select when creating your campaign. You can fully customise the game's appearance by replacing default assets, such as the pitch background, goal, ball, and goalkeeper animations, to match your brand's requirements.
The entire game is built and managed within the Xtremepush platform and can be embedded directly on your website.
Prerequisites of game setup
User Segments: To target your game to specific players, you need pre-configured segments. Create these on the Xtremepush platform before you start. For more information, see Before You Create a Game Campaign.
Game Assets: Prepare your game assets. These include images for the game background, goal, ball, and other branded elements.
Setup process overview
The following sections provide a high-level overview of the steps required to set up a Penalty Shootout game, with links to more detailed documentation.
The infographic below highlights the four key stages of the game launch workflow, from creation to monitoring:
Create Campaign
Define the rules of your new game.
Customise Design
Replace assets and update texts.
Configure Mechanics
Configure prizes and optional time slots.
Launch & Monitor
Embed your game and view player activity.
Create your game campaign
The first step in creating your game is creating a game campaign. A campaign acts as the container for your game, allowing you to define crucial aspects like target audiences, campaign duration and more. It also contains your game’s design, text, and prize configurations.
For more information on the required fields when setting up campaigns, see Create a Game Campaign
Selecting a template automatically loads a complete layout file and the necessary assets into your campaign's Assets tab. This streamlines configuration, allowing you to easily replace the default assets with your own without needing to build the game's layout from scratch.
Make design changes to your game
After you create the campaign, customise the game's visual design and text to match your brand. This involves three key areas:
Replace or Add Assets: The template you select provides a standard asset pack, which includes default images for the goal, ball, and pitch. You have two options for customisation:
Replace any of the default assets with your own branded versions. For more information, see Replace Assets.
Add new assets that are not part of the standard pack. For more information, see Manage Assets. For a general overview of game assets, see Assets Overview.
Update Game Texts: In the Texts tab, update all the standard text that appears in your game's interface. The text shown when a player reveals a specific prize is configured separately, in the Prizes tab. For more information, see Update Texts.
Make Design Changes in the Editor: Use the Editor for granular control over the game's front-end appearance. You can resize or reposition elements, change fonts and colours, or add new components. For more information, see:
Configure game mechanics
Prizes in Penalty Shootout
In the Prizes tab of your campaign, you configure the prizes available in your game. For more information on the different prize configuration fields, see Configure Prizes.
You can configure a single prize or as many as you need, and a no-win prize is optional rather than required. If you do want to include the possibility of a no-win then you must also configure a No-win prize to handle the outcome where a player does not win a prize. Assign it a weight in the same way as your win prizes to set the likelihood of this outcome.
Whether a player wins a specific prize depends on:
Weight: Sets the likelihood of the prize being awarded relative to the other prizes in the game. A higher weight increases the chance of a player winning that prize.
Customer Segment: The customer segment or segments the prize is assigned to. Because prizes are tied to customer segments, a player can only win a prize that is assigned to their segment.
The table below shows an example prize configuration:
Prize | Prize Reference | Customer Segment | Weight | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
🎟️ 5 Free Spins | Win | New Users, Occasional Players | 15 | 3 |
🎟️ 10 Free Spins | Win | New Users | 10 | 2 |
💰 €10 Bonus | Win | Occasional Players | 20 | 2 |
💰 €10 Bonus | Win | VIP Players | 30 | 1 |
💰 €30 Cashback | Win | VIP Players | 10 | 2 |
🏆 €50 Cashback | Win | VIP Players | 5 | 3 |
No-win | No-win | New Users | 75 | 1 |
No-win | No-win | Occasional Players | 65 | 1 |
No-win | No-win | VIP Players | 55 | 0 |
In this example above, the winning chances for each segment are:
New Users: 15% chance of winning 5 Free Spins, 10% chance of winning 10 Free Spins, 75% chance of No-win.
Occasional Players: 15% chance of winning 5 Free Spins, 20% chance of winning the €10 Bonus, 65% chance of No-win.
VIP Players: 30% chance of winning the €10 Bonus, 10% chance of winning the €30 Cashback, 5% chance of winning the €50 Cashback, 55% chance of no win.
The no-win weight is different for each segment. VIP Players are the most exclusive segment, so their no-win prize has a lower weight than New Users or Occasional Players, giving them a better chance of winning a prize.
Total weight = 100% per segment
Note that for each segment, the total weight must total 100.
Goals: This column represents the pre-determined number of goals the game will have the player score in relation to the configured prize.
Manage time slots (optional)
You can control your game's daily availability by setting up specific time slots when it can be played. For example, you could make the game available only during a 'happy hour' promotion from 5 PM to 7 PM.
For more information, see Manage Time Slots (Optional).
Disable a game using timeslots
Time slots are also a quick way to temporarily close a game without removing it from your site, for example during maintenance or if you need to pause a campaign. Change a time slot's hours and update the associated text to tell players when to come back.
Launch and monitor game
Launch your game
To launch your game, you must embed it on your website. For added security, you can also use a JWT token to ensure that only authenticated users are able to play.
For more information, see the following pages:
Monitor player activity
The Xtremepush platform automatically tracks the following engagement data for the Penalty Shootout game, which you can view in the Games tab of your campaign:
A record of every user who played the game.
Timestamps for when the game was opened (Created At) and when the player finished their shooting attempts (Finished At).
Details on which users won a prize.
Timestamps for when a prize was accepted or declined.