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Kick American-football field goals with a flick of your finger. Aim between the uprights and over the crossbar while a crosswind pushes the ball sideways for the whole flight. Every make moves the next kick three yards back into stronger wind, and past about 66 yards even a perfect kick falls short — so how far can you get before three misses?
The field is seen from above: you kick from the bottom and the goalposts are at the top, drawn as a yellow crossbar with an upright at each end. The distance of the kick and the wind are shown above the field. Each kick is taken from a slightly different spot left or right of centre.
To kick, put your finger anywhere on the field and flick it upward, then let go. The direction of the flick aims the kick — a flick tilted to the right sends the ball right of straight — and the length of the flick sets the power, shown by the bar on the right. A dashed line shows where the ball would cross the goal line if there were no wind. A tiny flick, or one that goes downward, cancels the kick.
The ball needs enough power to be above the crossbar when it reaches the goal line, and it must pass between the uprights. The wind pushes it sideways the whole time it is in the air, and the push adds up the longer the ball flies, so aim upwind of the posts — more for long kicks and strong wind.
Each good kick scores a point, and the next kick is 3 yards further back with a stronger possible wind. A kick that falls short, or goes wide left or right, costs one of three hearts. When all three are gone the game ends and you can save your score.
Power is a threshold, not a target. As long as the ball clears the crossbar, extra power does no harm — and it actually helps, because a harder kick reaches the posts sooner, giving the wind less time to push it. From the middle distances onward, kick close to full power and spend your attention on the aim.
The wind drift grows with the square of the flight time, so it matters very little on short kicks and a great deal on long ones. A 3 m/s wind moves a full-power 25-yard kick by barely 20 cm, but at 50 yards an 8 m/s wind pushes it more than two metres — nearly half the width of the goal. Aim a little upwind early on, and much further upwind as the distance grows.
Watch where each kick starts. When the ball is placed to the right of centre, straight up the field is already aimed at the right-hand upright; tilt your flick back towards the middle before you add the wind correction.
Use your misses as measurements. If a kick into a 4 m/s wind went just outside the left upright, the next kick in similar wind needs only a slightly larger correction, not a completely different one. Small, deliberate changes to the angle of your flick are what carry you past 50 yards.