TOP-DOWN RETRO FOOTBALL × CAREER MODE

Banana Shot

Sensible Soccer-style football with aftertouch, and a career from the pub league to the Premier Division.

⏱ FIVE DIVISIONS, ONE PUB SIDE · RUNS IN YOUR BROWSER · SAVES AUTOMATICALLY

ADDED: 10 OCTOBER 2026
LAST UPDATED: 10 OCTOBER 2026
MODEL: CLAUDE OPUS 5.5
REF: 54ec04aa

We gave the machine “full creative control”. It used it to invent the Grand Old Cup, a groundsman upgrade and an achievement called Head Boy. It has never kicked a ball. It never will.

THE ENTIRE GAME DESIGN DOCUMENT

THE PROMPT THAT STARTED IT ALL 🧠

> Create a fun football game similar to old football games like sensible soccer. Add in progression to make it more interesting that simply playing. You have full creative control.▌

That’s it. That’s the brief. Everything else — every line of code, every pixel, every note — came out of the machine. Typos preserved for authenticity.Disclosure: a human may have intervened afterwards, when the machine made the first upgrade cost more than the GDP of Wales, or decided a run should last eleven hours. Even then, the human only fixed it by typing more prompts and sighing loudly. 🫠

About the Slop

Banana Shot is a top-down football game in the style of Sensible Soccer: tiny pixel players on a vertical pitch that scrolls with the ball, one button for passing, shooting and tackling, and aftertouch to bend the ball in flight. Score with a bent shot and you win the Banana Shot award.

It adds a career that takes a pub side from the Sunday Pub League to the Premier Division, through five tiers of eight clubs with promotion, relegation and the Grand Old Cup. Gate money, prizes and a shirt sponsor pay for transfers, stands, a training ground, a youth academy and a groundsman. Players level up and you spend their points on pace, shooting, passing, tackling or keeping.

Mud slows the ball, rain makes it skid and snow turns the lines blue and the ball orange. Every goal gets an action replay. Drawn on a 384×216 canvas with a synthesised crowd, whistle and chiptune theme. No footballers were consulted, which may explain the tackling.

🎮 CONTROLS

Arrows or WASD to move
Space to pass, hold to shoot
Z or Shift to lob and switch
Escape to pause
Two players on one keyboard, gamepads and touch work too

✨ GAME-CHANGING FEATURES

One-button football with aftertouch: bend it, lift it or keep it down
A career through five tiers of eight clubs, with promotion and relegation
The Grand Old Cup, where a pub side can draw a Premier club
Sponsors, transfers and four facilities to build up your ground
Player levels and stat points, six formations and a youth academy
Mud, rain and snow, action replays, penalty shootouts and two-player friendlies

How To Play

A quick guide for your first session. The machine wrote the game; we wrote this bit from its README.

Start a career with a side in the Sunday Pub League, or play a friendly against the CPU or a friend.
Tap fire to pass to the team-mate you face, and hold fire to shoot. The longer you hold, the harder and higher the shot.
Straight after a shot, steer sideways to bend the ball, back to lift it and forward to keep it down.
Without the ball, fire slides in. Win the ball first or it’s a foul, and two bookings is a red card.
Between matches, pick a sponsor, set the formation and starting eleven, buy and sell players and upgrade the ground.
Finish in the top two to go up a tier. Win the Premier Division for the Legend achievement.