# Novus Striker — full text

> Novus Striker is a fast, free arcade soccer game you play right in your browser. Pick your team, chain combos, and bury last-second screamers. No download, no install.

This is the companion to https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/llms.txt. That file is an index of links; this one
is the teaching content itself, so a model does not have to fetch and strip 23
HTML pages to answer a question about the game.

Everything below is generated from the same modules the pages render from, so it cannot describe
a build the site no longer serves. Where a page's copy lives inside its component rather than in
a data module it is listed under "Pages summarised, not reproduced" at the end, with its URL.

Publisher: Novus Stream Solutions. Contact: striker@novusstreamsolutions.com.
Generated from the installed Unity release; the download is 87 MB on a first visit.

## How to play in thirty seconds

1. Move with the left stick, WASD, arrows or the touch joystick; dash uses finite stamina.
2. Tap pass or shoot for a quick action. Hold and release near full for a perfect action; overholding is unsafe.
3. Tap the challenge control to shove and hold it to commit to a charged tackle.
4. Use right-stick gestures, right-mouse drag or the touch skill pad for cuts, turns, spins and shielding.
5. A full meter starts the three-part Power sequence: power lock, accuracy lock, then the live keeper contest.

## The core loop

- **Position** — Move into space, switch strikers and spend dash stamina to close a lane.
- **Charge** — Tap for speed or hold pass and shoot through charged, perfect and overcharged outcomes.
- **Strike** — Release into a pass, one-timer, aerial finish or live Power Strike.
- **React** — Challenge, intercept, catch or chase the live rebound from a keeper parry.
- **Build** — Earn meter, items, rewards and career progress without changing the one-point goal rule.

## Controls

All three schemes play the whole game; none is a reduced version of another.

- **Keyboard & mouse** — primary: WASD: move · L-CLICK: pass · LEFT CONTROL: lob / chip modifier · LEFT ALT: free pass modifier · R-MOUSE DRAG / SPACE WHILE CARRYING: skill move / shield · R-CLICK: shoot · SPACE: shove / tackle / air · LEFT SHIFT: sprint · TAB: switch · Q: power · E: item · M-CLICK: keeper dive · ESCAPE: pause. Skill move: Right-mouse drag and Space while carrying both feed the skill-move system..
- **Controller** — primary: L-STICK: move · A: pass · LT: lob / chip modifier · RT: free pass modifier · R-STICK: skill move / shield · B: shoot · X: shove / tackle / air · LB: sprint · RB: switch · Y: power · D-PAD UP: item · R-STICK: keeper dive · MENU: pause. Skill move: Face-button labels adapt in-game for Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo pads..
- **Touch** — primary: LEFT JOYSTICK: move · PASS: pass · LOB: lob / chip modifier · FREE: free pass modifier · SHOOT: shoot · SKILL PAD: skill move / shield · TACKLE: shove / tackle / air · DASH: sprint · SWITCH: switch · POWER: power · II: pause. Skill move: Responsive safe-area layout with ground, lob and free-space passing; item use and keeper dive remain keyboard/controller actions..

## Mechanics in the shipped build

### Nine-zone assisted shooting

Assisted aim selects a 3 by 3 goal target from low-left through high-right.

Mouse projects onto the goal; controller aim is camera-relative and falls back to facing when neutral.

### Four charge outcomes

Passes and shots resolve as quick, charged, perfect or overcharged.

Holding beyond full loses the safe release instead of adding free power.

### Gesture skill moves

Burst, directional cuts, half-turns, full spins and shielding share one recognizer.

Right stick, right-mouse drag and the touch skill pad use the same thresholds.

### One-timers and aerial finishes

Low one-timers, volleys, headers, bicycles and scissors are outcome-driven moves.

Ball geometry and action timing select the finish; animation never awards it.

### Charged tackles

Tap shoves; hold commits to a charged tackle.

The hold, release, hit, stumble, fence hit and get-up states are explicit.

### Power Strike keeper contest

Power and accuracy locks launch a live ball into an authoritative keeper contest.

A save can parry a live rebound; a win can knock the keeper back. Every resulting goal is worth one.

## Game guides

One per system, at https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/explore.

### Career — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/explore/career

Career is the long-form home for your club and created strikers. Its landing screen brings the next fixture, party, progression, squad, competitions, shop, training, achievements and saved highlights into one resumable flow.

Highlights:
- Up to four local career profiles with independent created strikers
- Team Career and single-athlete Pro Career control styles
- Atomic local saves, visible save status and backup recovery

How it plays out:
Create. Choose a club, team format, control style and one to four local player profiles.
Prepare. Set the lineup, equipment, training focus and next-fixture objectives from the Career hub.
Compete. Play only the fixture carrying the active career token, then return to the updated hub.

### Competitions and bosses — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/explore/competitions

Competition fixtures persist their opponent, arena, format, rules and unique result token. Quick Match, Training and Versus cannot advance a career run, and a completed fixture can settle only once.

Highlights:
- Cup, league and gauntlet competition structures
- Five original circuit bosses with readable signature behaviour
- Bracket, table, rewards and correct next-round result actions

How it plays out:
Qualify. Complete objectives and qualifying fixtures to enter the next competition.
Advance. Review the table or bracket, then play the one authorized next fixture.
Unlock. Defeat a boss to add its balanced profile to this local career save.

### Strike Road and progression — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/explore/progression

Strike Road is the persistent profile progression path, not a match mode. The page explains how play contributes, what the next tier unlocks, which rewards are claimable and the recommended action that moves progress forward.

Highlights:
- Level, XP, STK and next-tier progress in one view
- Milestones for goals, passing, saves, tackles and Power Strikes
- Idempotent reward claims that cannot pay twice

How it plays out:
Play. Finish eligible matches, lessons and challenges to record authoritative progress.
Review. See exact remaining requirements instead of guessing what a progress bar means.
Claim. Claim unlocked rewards, then spend earned STK in the Gear Shop.

### My Striker — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/explore/my-striker

My Striker is the player-authored athlete surface inside Career. Each local career profile owns its name, body, archetype, appearance, training allocation, equipment and individual progress.

Highlights:
- Responsive live preview with rotation and zoom
- Archetype, stat allocation, appearance and equipment comparison
- One created striker per participating local career profile

How it plays out:
Create. Name the athlete, choose a compatible body and set an archetype.
Develop. Spend earned training points within the profile cap.
Equip. Try on owned gear and commit the loadout to the active career profile.

### Gear shop and match items — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/explore/gear-and-items

Gear is persistent career equipment; match items are temporary arcade tools. The shop enforces Strike Road eligibility and ownership, while item spawning uses a seeded fair shuffle with explicit pickup and use actions.

Highlights:
- Shoes, shin guards, headgear and chest equipment
- Surge Core, Pulse Disc, Gravity Snare, Impact Orb and Aegis Field
- Manual human item use, AI decisions, HUD, replay and event attribution

How it plays out:
Unlock. Reach the relevant Strike Road band to make a gear item eligible.
Purchase. Spend only earned STK; ownership persists with the career profile.
Use. Equip gear between fixtures and trigger a carried match item with Use Item.

### Game modes — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/explore/game-modes

Every mode owns its rules and continuation route. Quick setup cannot start an untracked career fixture, Training cannot alter a competition, and local multiplayer does not invent a keyboard player who never joined.

Highlights:
- 5v5 default and 4v4 alternate team formats
- Compact Quick Match setup with Play Last Setup and Edit Setup
- Explicit local device, side and ready ownership

How it plays out:
Choose. Start from the mode landing page, where the purpose and player count are explicit.
Configure. Set teams, lineup, format, arena, rules, controls and item preset.
Ready. Confirm every required local device before loading the match.

### Training Academy — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/explore/training-academy

Training is no longer only a full scrimmage. Each lesson has its own objective, instructions and completion state, with free practice kept as a separate option for experimentation.

Highlights:
- Eight individual tutorial lessons
- Controller, keyboard and touch references remain visible
- Scored objectives and a direct return to the Academy landing page

How it plays out:
Select. Pick the exact mechanic you want to practice from the Academy grid.
Learn. Read a short loading-card tip, then complete focused on-pitch objectives.
Repeat. Replay the lesson, move to the recommended next lesson or enter free practice.

### Arenas — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/explore/arenas

Arena selection combines a governed in-engine capture with the venue name, surface treatment, visual identity and any live rule effect. The production release expands the rotation from three venues to six.

Highlights:
- The Board, Frozen Tundra and Scrap Yard
- Verdant Crown, Midnight Circuit and Nova Academy
- Desktop High and Mobile Performance stadium presentation tiers

How it plays out:
Browse. Compare the venue capture and mechanic from the setup flow.
Select. Commit the arena to the match or career fixture.
Play. Camera, props, crowd and surface quality adapt to the selected performance tier.

### Controls and accessibility — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/explore/controls

The controls surface always exposes all three input schemes. Controller focus, reconnect state, pause navigation, sliders, rebinding and touch safe areas are part of the same supported flow rather than mouse-only exceptions.

Highlights:
- Move, aim, pass, lob, free pass, shoot, tackle, dash, deke, switch and use item
- Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo-style label families
- Reduced motion, effects, touch sizing and colour-vision settings

How it plays out:
Connect. Press a button to identify a controller and claim the intended local player slot.
Learn. Open the persistent control reference without leaving the current flow.
Tune. Rebind actions and adjust accessibility settings with mouse, keyboard, pad or touch.

### Passing, shooting and team play — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/explore/arcade-mechanics

The production mechanics share typed action intents across human and AI players. A selected receiver, predicted arrival, legal receive envelope and 3-by-3 goal target make input results understandable without removing interceptions or physical contact.

Highlights:
- Controlled dribble touches, reserved receivers and bounded receive assistance
- Ground one-timers, headers, volleys, bicycles and scissors
- Nine-zone assisted shots, live blocks, keeper parries and contested rebounds

How it plays out:
Create space. AI support roles preserve width, depth and one-timer lanes around one active presser.
Commit. Charge a pass or shot while the selected target and outcome remain readable.
React. Trap, redirect, intercept or fight for the physical rebound instead of watching a scripted catch.

### Power Strikes — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/explore/power-strikes

Power Strikes never change the score value. Their advantage is force, keeper displacement, dangerous rebounds, cinematic presentation and high highlight priority.

Highlights:
- Power lock, accuracy lock and keeper contest
- Catch, live parry, ricochet and keeper knockback outcomes
- Dedicated animation, audio, replay and crowd presentation beats

How it plays out:
Build. Fill the meter through active team play.
Lock. Commit the power and accuracy stages under defensive pressure.
Contest. The physical ball and keeper resolve the outcome; every goal still adds exactly one.

### Move Lab — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/explore/move-lab

Move Lab is the non-destructive character move browser shared by the Roster and game guide. It separates universal football actions from genuine character signatures, displays authoritative keyboard, controller and touch bindings, and plays only validated animation variants on the selected athlete.

Highlights:
- Locomotion, dribbling, passing, receiving, shooting, aerial, defending, item and Power Strike categories
- Character preview with anticipation, contact, follow-through, recovery and input timing
- Signature name, behaviour, strengths and counterplay without changing a save or starting a match

How it plays out:
Choose. Select any available athlete; locked bosses remain readable opponent previews rather than selectable players.
Inspect. Compare shared actions and the athlete's real signature move, including controls, timing and tactical use.
Preview. Play a validated animation variant on the menu stage, then return to the exact roster or guide position.

### Replays and highlights — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/explore/highlights

Replay uses compact transform and event snapshots rather than encoded video. The same recorder supports the post-goal scene, skippable end-of-match reel and a persistent local gallery with automatic saves and explicit favourites.

Highlights:
- Twelve-second rolling pre-event capture plus post-event context
- Automatic goal, save, aerial, impact and Power Strike highlights
- Local gallery status: saved, evicted or failed, with favourite and delete controls

How it plays out:
Capture. The rolling recorder continuously keeps the moments before important events.
Replay. After a goal, watch the complete action before celebration and kickoff.
Remember. Review the top-three match reel and revisit saved highlights from the hub.

### Custom clubs — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/explore/custom-clubs

Custom clubs belong to a local profile, not to a match. Each profile can create, edit and select its own clubs, with names, crest presets, clash-safe home and away colours, tactics, unique lineups and a validated keeper, all persisted locally, and usable in Strike Road and Career.

Highlights:
- Per-profile club creation, editing and selection
- Crest presets and clash-safe home and away colours
- Tactics, unique lineups and validated keepers persist locally

How it plays out:
Design. Name the club, pick a crest preset and choose home and away colours that can never clash.
Assemble. Set the tactics and build a unique lineup around a validated keeper.
Assign. Select the club for Strike Road or Career; the definition persists with the local profile.

### Results, stats and achievements — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/explore/results-and-achievements

The results flow records what actually happened: score, shots, possession, passing, turnovers, one-timers, tackles, saves, assists, Power Strikes, items and earned rewards. Achievement progress uses stable IDs and idempotent claims.

Highlights:
- Detailed per-match performance summary
- Twenty-six data-driven achievements with responsive progress bars
- Career-specific Next Fixture, Bracket or Tournament Result actions

How it plays out:
Review. Skip or watch the top-three reel, then inspect the full match summary.
Progress. See rewards and the exact achievement milestones advanced by the match.
Continue. Return to the correct Quick Match, Academy or Career destination.

## Tutorials

Step-by-step chapters, at https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/guides.

### Your first match — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/guides/first-match

Quick Match is one configurable local match: you choose the clubs, the lineup, the arena, the rules and the camera, and nothing you do in it can touch a career save. The default team format is four outfield strikers in front of an AI keeper, so your first job is only ever the outfield.

1. **Pick Quick Match from the mode board** — The mode board is the first decision. Quick Match is the no-strings option: one local match you configure yourself, with no career token attached to the result.
2. **Build the matchup** — Setup walks through clubs, lineup, arena and rules. The default format is 4 outfield + AI keeper, with a 3 outfield alternate; regulation defaults to three minutes and can be set from two to ten.
3. **Move first, sprint second** — Move with the left stick, WASD, arrows or the touch joystick. Sprint is a separate control and spends finite stamina, so save the dash for closing a lane rather than holding it everywhere.
4. **Tap to act, hold to charge** — A tap passes or shoots immediately. Holding charges the action, release near full for a perfect one. Holding past full is unsafe: you lose the safe release instead of gaining free power.
5. **Play to the whistle** — A match is one period. A drawn match can go to a sixty-second golden-goal period and then a three-round shootout, so a tie is never the end of the story.

Tips:
- Every goal is worth exactly one, normal, item-assisted or Power Strike. Nothing multiplies the score.
- The keeper is AI-controlled in every format, so nobody has to play in goal.
- Switch hands you a different striker; use it the moment the ball changes sides.

### Movement and passing — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/guides/movement-passing

Passing has three distinct deliveries, all on one button. A plain release plays a ground pass. Holding the lob modifier turns the same release into a lob. Holding the free-pass modifier while releasing sends the ball into open space instead of to a teammate's feet, the pass you play for a runner, not a receiver.

1. **Read your stamina before you dash** — Sprint spends a finite stamina pool. A defender who dashes early has nothing left for the recovery run, so move at base speed until a burst actually wins something.
2. **Tap for a quick pass** — A tapped pass is the quick outcome: instant, safe and short. It is the right choice under pressure, when holding for more power would invite the tackle.
3. **Hold to charge, release near full** — A held pass charges through the same four outcomes as a shot, quick, charged, perfect, overcharged. Perfect release near full charge gives the best delivery; holding past full loses the safe release.
4. **Lob over the line** — Hold the lob modifier with pass to play the ball over a defender instead of through them. The same modifier with shoot plays a chip on goal.
5. **Free pass into space** — Hold the free-pass modifier while releasing to aim the pass at a point on the pitch rather than a teammate. It is how you lead a sprinter into an empty channel.

Tips:
- Touch players get all three deliveries too: the touch layout has dedicated ground, lob and free-space passing controls.
- Switching to the receiver early beats watching the pass travel, you arrive controlling the striker who matters next.

### The four charge outcomes — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/guides/charge-outcomes

Every pass and every shot in the game resolves as one of four outcomes, quick, charged, perfect or overcharged. This is the mechanic the rest of the game is built on, and it has one honest trap in it: more holding is not more power forever.

1. **Quick: the tap** — Tap and the action happens now. Quick actions trade power for immediacy, the right answer whenever a defender is a step away.
2. **Charged: the hold** — Hold and the action charges. A charged release is stronger than a tap, and the charge is a commitment: you are readable while you hold.
3. **Perfect: release near full** — Release close to full charge for the perfect outcome, the best version of the pass or shot. Learning where 'near full' sits in the rhythm is the skill worth practicing first.
4. **Overcharged: past full** — Hold beyond full and you overcharge. The contract states it plainly: holding beyond full loses the safe release instead of adding free power. Greed is punished by the mechanic itself, not by chance.

Tips:
- The same four outcomes govern passes and shots, so every passing drill is also shooting practice.
- Under a hard press, the quick tap is not a compromise, it is the correct outcome for that moment.

### Nine-zone shooting — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/guides/nine-zone-shooting

Shots are aimed at a three-by-three grid across the goal mouth. Assisted aim picks the zone from your input (low-left through high-right) so a shot's placement is a decision you made, not a dice roll you watched.

1. **Know the grid** — The goal is divided into nine zones: three columns, three heights. Every assisted shot resolves to one of them.
2. **Aim with the mouse** — On keyboard and mouse, the cursor projects onto the goal: point at the zone you want and the assisted shot targets it.
3. **Aim with a stick** — On a controller the aim is camera-relative, and a neutral stick falls back to the striker's facing, so an unaimed shot still goes where your body points, not nowhere.
4. **Chip the keeper** — Hold the lob modifier with shoot to play a chip. Combined with charge control, that gives low drives, standard strikes, rising shots and chips off the same button.
5. **Respect the charge** — Zone selection does not replace the charge outcomes: a perfect release into a corner zone is the shot the whole system is teaching you to hit.

Tips:
- Shots launch on shared deterministic trajectory data (low, standard, rising, chip, aerial and Power launches) so the same input produces the same ball.
- Blocks, keeper parries and rebounds stay physical: a saved shot is a live ball, not a dead whistle.

### One-timers, volleys and headers — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/guides/one-timers-aerials

A one-timer is a shot played first-time, as a pass arrives, without taking a touch. In Novus Striker these finishes are outcome-driven: ball geometry and action timing select which finish you get, and the animation never awards a goal the physics did not earn.

1. **Strike the arriving ball** — Press shoot as a pass reaches you instead of trapping it first. On a ground ball that is a low one-timer, the fastest shot in the game, because it skips the touch a defender could punish.
2. **Meet the ball in the air** — Against an airborne ball, the same input becomes an aerial finish. The ball's height and position pick the move: a volley off the drop, or a header when it arrives at head height.
3. **Earn the spectacular** — Bicycles and scissors are in the same family, finishes the geometry offers when the ball is behind or above you. You do not input them separately; you create the situation that produces them.
4. **Trust timing over animation** — The contract is explicit: ball geometry and action timing select the finish, and animation never awards it. If the shot missed, the timing was off, not the dice.

Tips:
- Lobbed passes are the raw material of aerial finishes: lob to the far post, then arrive shooting.
- One-timer lanes are a team shape: support AI holds width and depth to keep them open around one active presser.

### Tackles, shoves and defending — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/guides/defending

Defending has the same tap-versus-hold grammar as attacking. A tap is a shove: quick contact that nudges the duel. A hold commits you to a charged tackle: a bigger hit with a bigger promise attached, because every one of its states (hold, release, hit, stumble, fence hit, get-up) is explicit and readable by your opponent.

1. **Take control of the right defender** — Switch puts you on a different striker. Defending starts with being the player between the ball and your goal, not chasing from behind.
2. **Tap to shove** — The tap is fast, cheap contact, enough to unsettle a carrier or fight for a fifty-fifty without committing your body.
3. **Hold for the charged tackle** — Holding charges a committed tackle. Land it and the carrier is beaten; the hit and its aftermath are physical, not scripted.
4. **Pay for the miss** — The state chain is honest: a beaten defender stumbles, a striker driven into the boards takes the fence hit, and a knocked-down player has a real get-up. A missed charged tackle takes you out of the play.
5. **Chase the live rebound** — The AI keeper resolves saves three ways: a clean catch, a parry that leaves a live rebound, or knockback under a Power Strike. A parry is not a stop, it is the next duel.

Tips:
- Carriers can shield the ball; a shielding opponent is bait for an early charged tackle, and the shield is beaten by patience, not panic.
- The keeper is AI in every mode, your defending job is the four outfield lanes, plus the keeper-dive control when you want the dive timed yourself.

### Skill moves and shielding — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/guides/skill-moves

Skill moves are gestures, not button combos. One recognizer reads them from the right stick on a controller, a right-mouse drag on keyboard and mouse, and the skill pad on touch, with the same thresholds on all three, so a move you learn on one input is learned on every input.

1. **Cut across the defender** — A directional cut is the bread-and-butter move: a sharp gesture that takes the ball across your body and out of the tackle's line.
2. **Half-turn out of pressure** — A half-turn takes you from facing your own goal to facing theirs in one motion, the escape for a striker receiving with a defender on their back.
3. **Spin through contact** — The full spin carries the ball through a complete rotation, shedding a defender who committed to the first direction.
4. **Burst when the lane opens** — The burst is acceleration as a skill move, a sudden change of pace that turns half a step of space into a real gap.
5. **Shield when there is nothing on** — Holding the skill control while carrying shields the ball with your body. It is not invulnerability, it is time, bought legally, for a pass to appear.

Tips:
- On keyboard the shield sits on Space while carrying; the same key defends when you are off the ball.
- The Move Lab previews every shared and signature move with its timing and counterplay before you risk it in a match.

### Power Strikes — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/guides/power-strikes

A full meter starts the three-part Power sequence: power lock, accuracy lock, then a live keeper contest. It is the game's showpiece shot, and it is honest about what it pays out, a Power Strike goal is worth exactly one, the same as a tap-in. What you win is force, keeper displacement and dangerous rebounds.

1. **Build the meter** — The meter fills through active team play, the same passing, tackling and shooting you were already doing. It is earned, not found.
2. **Trigger the sequence** — With a full meter, press the Power control to start the three-stage sequence under live defensive pressure.
3. **Lock the power** — The first stage sets the shot's force. Committing it is the point of no return, the sequence is a gamble you chose to take.
4. **Lock the accuracy** — The second stage sets placement. Both locks together launch a real, physical ball, not a cutscene that already knows the ending.
5. **Win the keeper contest** — The keeper contest resolves live: a catch ends it, a parry leaves a dangerous live rebound to fight for, and a winning strike can knock the keeper back into the net's mouth.

Tips:
- A parried Power Strike is often the real chance, the rebound arrives with the keeper displaced.
- Power contests carry dedicated replay and highlight priority, so the reel remembers them.

### Match items — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/guides/items

Items are the optional arcade layer: one-slot pickups that appear during supported matches. The draw is a seeded fair shuffle-bag (Surge Core, Pulse Disc, Gravity Snare, Impact Orb and Aegis Field never repeat before a full cycle completes) so the item game is fair by construction, not by apology.

1. **Collect one, carry one** — Pickups are one-slot: you carry a single item until you use it. Grabbing a pickup while holding one is a decision about the item you already have.
2. **Trust the bag** — The shuffle-bag guarantee means you cannot be starved of an item or flooded with one: every item appears once per cycle before any repeats.
3. **Use it on purpose** — Item use is a deliberate button (E on keyboard, up on the d-pad) never an automatic trigger. AI opponents make the same explicit decision.
4. **Know the five** — Each item has one clear job, a speed window, a forward pulse, an area slow, radial knockback, a tackle shield. The items page breaks down what each one does and how to play against it.
5. **Set the table before kickoff** — Match setup carries an item preset, including turning items off entirely. Every preset draws from the same five-item catalog, presets change how often, never what.

Tips:
- An item goal is worth one, like every other goal.
- Touch currently has no item-use control: play with items on keyboard or controller.

### Every way to play — https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/guides/modes

Every mode owns its own rules and its own consequences. Quick Match is consequence-free. Co-op and Versus are local multiplayer with explicit device ownership. The Training Academy teaches one system at a time. Career and Tournaments are where results persist, and only a fixture carrying the active career token can advance a career.

1. **Quick Match** — One configurable local match: clubs, lineup, arena, rules and camera, with nothing at stake beyond the scoreline.
2. **Local Co-op and Versus** — Co-op puts multiple local humans on one team, with controller readiness confirmed before kickoff. Versus puts them on opposing teams, each side keeping independent control ownership.
3. **Training Academy** — Eight selectable lessons (movement, passing, receiving, shooting, defending, aerial play, items and Power Strikes) plus free practice kept separate for experimentation.
4. **Career** — The long game: saved Team and Pro control styles, competitions, rewards and boss finals. Local party profiles persist, and sessions advance only from owned fixture tokens.
5. **Tournaments** — Cup, gauntlet and round-robin structures with bracket and result state persisting locally, the competitive spine without the career commitment.
6. **Bring your own club** — Each local profile can create custom clubs (name, crest preset, clash-safe colours, tactics and a unique lineup) and select them for Strike Road and Career.

Tips:
- Quick Match, Training and Versus can never advance a career run, a career fixture settles exactly once, from its own token.
- Regulation length is configurable from two to ten minutes in setup, with three minutes as the default.

## What is checked before anything downloads

Five checks run before a byte of the game is fetched. Only the two marked required can stop a
launch; the rest are reported and never enforced.

### WebGL 2 (required)

What it looks at: Whether this browser can create a WebGL 2 drawing context, which is what the game renders every frame into.

If it comes back badly: Update to a current Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari. If hardware acceleration is switched off in your browser's settings, turn it back on. That alone removes WebGL 2 on some machines.

### WebAssembly (required)

What it looks at: Whether an eight-byte empty module actually compiles. The whole game is compiled to WebAssembly, so this is not optional.

If it comes back badly: WebAssembly is usually disabled by an extension, an enterprise policy or a hardened profile rather than by the browser itself. Try a private window with extensions off, or a different browser.

### Device memory

What it looks at: How much RAM the device reports. The player asks for a large heap, so anything under 2 GB is worth a warning.

If it comes back badly: Close other tabs and other applications before you launch. Only Chromium browsers report this at all, so an "unknown" here means the browser declined to answer, not that anything is wrong.

### Storage for the cache

What it looks at: How much storage this origin may use, so the build can be kept for next time instead of being downloaded again.

If it comes back badly: Clear the cached build below, or free space on the device. A launch still works without it; every visit just re-downloads the build.

### Input device

What it looks at: Whether a mouse, a touchscreen or a controller was seen. Reported only, never enforced.

If it comes back badly: A controller does not announce itself to a browser until you press a button on it, so press A or Start and the check flips to ready. This can never stop a launch.

A device reporting under 2 GB of RAM gets a warning rather than a block.

## The four load stages

Loading is reported as four named stages. Only the first can report a real percentage, because
it is the only one the browser measures.

### Download

What it is doing: The four build files coming down the wire, about 87 MB on a first visit. This is the only stage that reports a real percentage, because it is the only one the browser measures.

What a stall here means: A percentage that climbs and then stops is a network problem: a dropped connection, a captive-portal login that has expired, or a proxy or filter refusing one of the four files.

What to try: Reload. The download resumes from what your browser already has rather than starting again. If it stalls at the same percentage twice, clear the cached build below: a half-written cache entry is served back as a truncated file and stalls in exactly the same place every time.

### Compile

What it is doing: Your browser turning the downloaded WebAssembly into machine code. It reports no progress at all, which is why this stage shows no percentage instead of a fabricated one.

What a stall here means: Sitting here for a long time on a slow or busy machine is normal, not broken. This is the most CPU-heavy moment of the whole load. Failing here, rather than waiting, almost always means WebAssembly is unavailable: an extension, an enterprise policy or a Content-Security-Policy without `wasm-unsafe-eval`.

What to try: Give it thirty seconds before deciding it is stuck. If it fails rather than waits, try a private window with extensions disabled. That is the fastest way to tell a blocked WebAssembly apart from a slow one.

### Initialise

What it is doing: The engine starting and the first scene loading. The code is compiled by now; this is the game itself waking up.

What a stall here means: Failing here is usually memory. The player asks for a large heap, and a device with other tabs open may not have it to give.

What to try: Close other tabs and other applications, then reload. If your browser reports under 2 GB in the pre-flight checks, that warning and this failure are the same problem.

### Cache

What it is doing: Keeping the build on this device so the next visit skips the download entirely. It runs after the game is already playable, so it can never stop you playing.

What a stall here means: Reported as skipped when the browser did not keep the build: a full disk, a private window, or a storage policy that evicts large entries.

What to try: Nothing needs fixing to play. If every visit re-downloads, free some space or leave private browsing; both restore the cache.

## Performance

In descending order of how much difference each one makes.

- **Close other tabs before you launch** — This is the single biggest lever and it costs nothing. The player reserves a large block of memory at startup; another tab holding a video or a heavy web app is competing for the same pool, and losing that race is what an initialise failure looks like.
- **Use fullscreen for the clearest phone view** — Fullscreen gives the pitch the entire safe display area and redraws the Unity canvas at a bounded 2x device-pixel density. It hides the website toolbar while playing and keeps one labelled Exit fullscreen button in the safe top-right corner.
- **Play on a wired or strong connection for the first launch only** — The download happens once. After the cache stage completes, later visits start from the copy on your device and the network stops mattering at all.
- **Turn camera shake down** — In the game's Settings menu. It is the one motion setting the build ships with, and turning it off both reduces motion and removes a per-frame cost.
- **On a phone, play in landscape and resize the touch pads** — Landscape gives the full tactical view of the pitch. The Settings menu adjusts touch-control scale and opacity, so the pads can be made bigger for accuracy or smaller to uncover the pitch.

## What is stored on your device

There is no account and no cloud save. Everything below lives in the visitor's own browser.

- **The game build** (`UnityCache (IndexedDB)`) — Clearing it means the next launch downloads the full 87 MB again. Nothing else is affected, because it is a copy of files this site serves, not anything of yours.
- **In-game settings and progress** (`IndexedDB, written by the game itself`) — Your settings, your striker and your records live here, in this browser, on this device. There is no account and no cloud save, so clearing all site data resets them and they cannot be recovered.
- **Your cookie choice** (`nss-consent`) — Clearing it brings the consent banner back on the next visit. Nothing else changes.
- **Your theme choice** (`nss-theme`) — Clearing it returns the site to the light theme. The switch is in the header on every page.

## Help contents

The sections of https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/help, each with its own anchor.

- [How to play in 30 seconds](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/help#thirty-seconds) — The five things that get you through a first match.
- [Controls, before you launch](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/help#controls) — Keyboard and mouse, controller and touch: all three play the whole game.
- [What is checked before anything downloads](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/help#pre-checks) — Five checks, two of which can stop a launch, and what to do about each.
- [When the launch fails](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/help#launch-failures) — The four load stages, which one stalled, and what that means.
- [The diagnostic report](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/help#diagnostic) — What is in it, and why nothing is sent unless you send it.
- [Browser support](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/help#browsers) — What actually decides whether the game runs here.
- [Saving, storage and clearing the cache](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/help#saving) — Where progress lives, what a clear removes, and how to do it.
- [Making it run better](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/help#performance) — The settings that matter, in the order they matter.
- [Common problems](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/help#problems) — Defects we have reproduced, with something you can do today.
- [Still stuck](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/help#still-stuck) — What to send, so a reply is useful rather than a questionnaire.

## Known issues

Published rather than omitted; each one is a real limitation of the build you can launch today.

- **Touch item use is not available** — A touch player can collect an item, but the touch overlay has no item-use control. Cause: The Unity touch action contract does not expose UseItem yet. Workaround: Use a keyboard or controller when playing with items enabled.

## Release history

- **Matches start again on WebGL** (August 22, 2026, 87 MB, release `40da7f5bb4b33784`) — Starting a match could leave the loading screen up forever. The renderer asked WebGL for a multisampled depth copy, which the platform cannot compile, so the pass that every match camera depends on failed and the match never appeared. Turning multisampling off in the WebGL render pipeline removes the impossible shader. This release also publishes the roster, arena, audio and career work finished since the last published build.
- **Definitive beta visual and mobile polish** (August 12, 2026, 81 MB, release `1720d9270d0c823f`) — This beta removes the black WebGL renderer regression, restores full-detail character and pitch materials, retunes every match camera around active play, spaces AI around one loose-ball presser, upgrades club selection previews, sharpens mobile fullscreen and publishes fresh in-engine captures.
- **The complete arcade-football rebuild** (August 12, 2026, 69 MB, release `81bc6f7486025b9a`) — This release rebuilds the match around readable team play: wider cameras, assisted passes and support runs, 5v5 or 4v4 lineups, aerial finishes, physical Power Strike keeper contests, original items, goal replays, highlights and a coherent career/menu flow. It also installs the five career bosses, restores authored character materials and teamwear, and adds full keyboard, controller, touch and mobile-fullscreen support.
- **Nine real characters, teams you can tell apart, music, and a goal that celebrates itself** (August 10, 2026, 78 MB, release `2ef592aa46f042f6`) — The nine sculpted athletes are in the game, wearing their club's colours. Until now both sides played in the same kit, and the only thing separating them was the coloured ring under each player's feet. The stadium's props are visible for the first time, the side-on camera no longer puts a wall between you and the pitch, and a goal is now an event on screen rather than a word in the banner. There is also music.
- **A bigger pitch, a stadium around it, and controls that follow the camera** (August 10, 2026, 69 MB, release `3ed11f981d57c26b`) — The pitch is larger and the camera sits further back, so players read as athletes on a field rather than filling the screen. The stadium around them is furnished for the first time: dugouts, tunnels, a scoreboard, lighting rigs, a broadcast position and a crowd close enough to see. The largest fix is the controls: in the touchline camera views, which versus always uses, every direction you pressed was a quarter turn out.
- **Five stats, grounded feet and a stat model that actually reached the game** (August 9, 2026, 58 MB, release `e9304a5003e022e6`) — The fifth stat is now something you can spend points on and something the game reads, feet plant on the pitch instead of floating over it, and a first session opens with the offer of a walkthrough. Most of this release is repair: the five-stat model had been added to the code without ever reaching the saved profiles or the character data.
- **Species characters, arcade feedback and mechanic fixes** (August 4, 2026, 48 MB, release `699233c7147acadf`) — The squad was rebuilt with faces and three distinct species, the pitch got a crowd and match effects, and a run of mechanics that had been contradicting each other were corrected.
- **Sculpted characters, the skill stick, and a failed load that finally says so** (August 3, 2026, 44 MB, release `e7466503acf1744e`) — The overhaul build: animation wired to real controllers, a three-point lighting rig, ACES and bloom with HDR actually enabled, the physical Power Strike and the skill stick. On the site, a load that fails now says it failed.
- **Gameplay overhaul** (July 19, 2026, 41 MB, release `a8a5619d6d28a5e3`) — The first overhaul build after launch, shipped alongside site-side work on the game player and the consent provider.

Release notes are also syndicated as RSS 2.0 at https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/rss.xml.

## Status

Reviewed by hand on August 7, 2026. This page is maintained by hand. It is not connected to any monitoring system and does not update on its own, so it reports what was true when it was last reviewed, not what is true this second.

- **Website**: operational — The pages you are reading now, served from Vercel's edge network.
- **Game delivery**: operational — The Unity WebGL build files under /unity/releases/. Every build is verified against its SHA-256 manifest before the site is allowed to compile.
- **Feedback email**: operational — striker@novusstreamsolutions.com. Mail is read by a person, so a reply takes as long as it takes.
- **Player accounts**: not-applicable — There are none. Novus Striker has no sign-in, no profiles and no save server, so there is nothing here that can go down.

## Pages summarised, not reproduced

The copy on these pages lives inside their components rather than in a data module, so what
follows is each page's own one-paragraph summary and its URL — not its full text. Fetch the URL
for the whole thing.

- [Home](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com) — The game fantasy in one sentence, the five-step core loop (position, charge, strike, react, build), and one card for each mechanic the shipped build actually has.
- [Play](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/game) — The game itself. Before anything is fetched, the page probes WebGL 2, WebAssembly, device memory, storage quota and input, and reports each one. Only WebGL 2 and WebAssembly can stop a launch. It also shows the controls for all three input schemes and a thirty-second explainer BEFORE the build downloads. Loading is reported as four separate stages (download, compile, initialise, cache), and a failure offers an opt-in diagnostic report that is never transmitted anywhere.
- [Roster](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/roster) — The Unity-owned character catalog: every athlete the installed release reports as playable, the gamewide goalkeeper who is published but never an outfield pick, and five career bosses unlocked by defeating them. Each profile includes its role, traits, balanced stats where validated, counterplay, backstory and literal build status.
- [Screens](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/screens) — In-engine captures of all thirty-three menu, hub and in-match screens in the current beta build, grouped by Career, match flow, progression and customization. Titles are checked against the Unity source, each capture carries a one-line description of what the screen does, and the files are stamped with the build they were taken from.
- [Features](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/features) — The mechanics the shipped build actually has (dash, pass, charged shots, Power Strike, the skill-stick gesture vocabulary, challenge and tackle, and local co-op) plus which of the three input schemes each one is available on.
- [Tool map](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/tool-map) — A taxonomy of the whole product in one page: every page on this site with the surfaces on it, every gameplay system in the build being served, the three input schemes, the machine-readable files, and a plainly stated list of what this site does not have.
- [Status](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/status) — A HAND-MAINTAINED record of component status, the known issues in the build being served right now (each with symptom, cause and workaround), and past incidents. No monitoring system feeds it and it does not update on its own; it carries the date a person last reviewed it, and should not be read as live.
- [About](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/about) — Who Novus Stream Solutions is, where it is based, and how Novus Striker is funded.
- [Press kit](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/press-kit) — Fact sheet, the share cards and icon as artwork, current release id and download size, and what may be reproduced.
- [Feedback](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/feedback) — Email contact for bugs and ideas, plus where Novus Stream Solutions is based.
- [Social accounts](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/social) — Every account Novus Stream Solutions runs, with the handle for each. The same list this site's Organization markup asserts as sameAs, stated in HTML so a reader and a link graph can follow it as well as a crawler, and so an impersonation is easy to rule out.
- [MCP server](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/mcp-server) — The Model Context Protocol endpoint for AI clients: its address, the protocol revision it speaks, how to add it to a client, and every tool it exposes.
- [AI policy](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/ai-policy) — What robots.txt says, written for a person: every AI agent this site names, whether each one is a bulk crawler or an assistant fetching for someone who is waiting, that nothing at all is disallowed, what a crawl of this site does and does not collect, and what is asked in return for quoting it.
- [Languages](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/languages) — The locale contract written for a person: the languages the Novus estate reserves, the address each one would be served at, whether its interface strings have been written, and which of them this host actually renders today. English is the only one served, and the page links no address that does not resolve.
- [Accessibility](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/accessibility) — Input parity across keyboard, controller and touch, the light and dark themes, the touch-control settings, and a plainly stated list of the gaps that have not been closed yet.
- [Security](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/security) — What is not stored (accounts, passwords, payment data), how the WebGL build is content-addressed and verified against a SHA-256 manifest, and how to report an issue.
- [Privacy](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/privacy) — What is collected, what is not, and how consent gates both analytics and advertising.
- [Terms](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/terms) — Terms for using the site and the game: what accepting them means, what counts as acceptable use, who owns the game and its artwork, and the disclaimer that a free browser game is provided as-is.
- [Cookies](https://striker.novusstreamsolutions.com/cookies) — Cookies and browser storage in detail, and how to clear the cached build.