The Sentinel
The goalkeeper
The goalkeeper is not a field player wearing gloves. It is the only character with articulated arms, and it pays for that defensive power with rigid legs. Its controls have almost nothing in common with the field player’s.
An inverted build
Where the field player has everything in the legs, the goalkeeper has everything in the arms. Its legs are rigid and serve only as a launch base. Its arms, by contrast, are fully articulated and cover the whole goal.
Its head is fully mobile, which lets it close a blind angle or deflect a point-blank shot when the arms are no longer enough.
The charged jump
Holding the jump key builds up energy. Releasing it launches the goalkeeper explosively in the chosen direction: left, right, or up.
The risk mirrors the reward. A badly anticipated jump leaves the goal empty for the length of the recovery, and an attacker who read the charge scores into an open net.
The full splits
Triggered by crouching: the rigid legs snap instantly into full splits.
This blocks the entire low zone of the goal. It is the answer to close-range one-on-ones — nutmegs and ground-level strikes — that the arms do not cover.
Two hand modes
The goalkeeper switches instantly between two configurations, and the choice matters as much as the positioning.
- Fist mode
- Reduced contact surface, but considerably increased clearing force. This is the mode for punching the ball a long way out of a scramble in front of goal.
- Open-hand mode
- Maximum coverage, to intercept a precise shot. It is also the mode required to use the magnetic gloves.
Magnetic gloves
Each hand has its own magnetism generator. Once active, it makes the ball stick inside the glove instead of bouncing off.
The timings are fixed and independent per hand: ten seconds active, thirty seconds to recharge. Managing those two counters is part of the role.
Once the ball is caught, the goalkeeper can make a very powerful manual throw with the arm and launch an immediate counter-attack.
The penalty duel
This is where the asymmetry shows best. In a penalty shootout, an attacker with articulated legs faces a goalkeeper with articulated arms: the first uses the infinite volley to feint the direction, the second a charged jump to cover an angle. Two different control systems, head to head.