Smash Hit

Smash Hit
App icon
Developer(s)	Mediocre
Publisher(s)	Mediocre
Designer(s)	Henrik Johansson
Programmer(s)	Dennis Gustafsson
Artist(s)	Henrik Johansson
Composer(s)	Douglas Holmquist
Platform(s)	Android iOS
Release	6 March 2014
Genre(s)	Rail shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Smash Hit is a 2014 rail shooter developed and published by the Swedish indie game studio Mediocre. In the game, the player takes a first-person perspective and has to shoot metal balls to destroy glass obstacles and beat its 11 levels. After completion, the player unlocks the "endless mode", an infinitely repeated level that ends when the player is out of balls. The game also features a one-time in-game purchase, allowing the player to start from any checkpoint.

The game's development began in 2012, and it was released for free on iOS and Android on 6 March 2014. A virtual reality adaptation of the game was released in 2015. Smash Hit received positive reviews; reviewers praised its physics, graphics, music, and sound effects. After Mediocre closed in 2017, Smash Hit programmer Dennis Gustafsson and composer Douglas Holmquist worked on the video game Teardown, which incorporated unused sounds from Smash Hit.

Smash Hit is a first-person rail shooter in which the player travels forward at a constant speed, accompanied by dynamic music that changes as the player advances.^[1][2] The player must shoot metal balls to destroy glass obstacles while aiming carefully, as the game ends when the limited ammunition runs out.^[1][3] Any collision with an obstacle results in the loss of ten balls.^[1] Smash Hit uses 3D graphics, and has been categorised as an action and puzzle game.^[4][5][6]

The player can also shoot at crystals, which give the player a certain number of balls depending on the crystal's shape.^[1][7] Smash Hit also has a combo mechanic; smashing a consecutive sequence of crystals will grant the player an extra ball to shoot at once while only losing one ball from their ammunition. The player can shoot up to five balls at once.^[1][8][9] Missing a crystal or sustaining damage ends the combo and resets the player's rate of fire to the baseline one ball.^[8][10] The player can also gather power-ups and activate them for a certain amount of time.^[5] Each power-up gives a special effect when activated, such as giving the player a limitless supply of balls, making all their balls explosive, or slowing down the time.^[3][11]

Smash Hit contains a total of 11 checkpoints, each with its own unique appearance.^[8][11] As the game progresses, the levels become harder in difficulty.^[1][12] After completing all 11 stages, the player enters the "endless mode", a stage which is repeated infinitely until the player is out of balls.^[8] The game does not count the player's score, but the distance covered.^[9] By default, the player starts at the beginning of each game; however, a one-time in-game purchase allows the player to start from any unlocked checkpoint, making it a freemium game.^[1][13][14] The purchase also allows the player to sync progress via their cloud system, such as iCloud.^[2][13]

After its release, Smash Hit introduced different game modes, including a training mode as well as two multiplayer modes: versus, with two players competing on the same device, and cooperative, with two players completing the game together on the same device.^[15][16]

Smash Hit was developed and published by the Swedish indie game^[17] studio Mediocre, co-founded by Dennis Gustafsson and Henrik Johansson.^[1][10] Gustafsson programmed the game, while Johansson was its artist and level designer.^[18] Douglas Holmquist composed the game's soundtrack and its sound effects.^[18][19]

Gustafsson and Johansson began developing the game in 2012, while Holmquist joined the team in January 2013. Mediocre tasked Holmquist with creating an electronic soundtrack and listed Gold Panda's Fifth Ave, Shigeto's Look at all the Smiling Faces, and Robot Koch's Water and Solutions as reference tracks for the game's soundtrack. Holmquist stated that Smash Hit was "the most challenging of all the games" on which he worked with Mediocre.^[19] The developers announced the game to the public in November 2013.^[20] Gustafsson referred to Smash Hit as Medicore's "most ambitious project to date" in December 2013.^[21]

Smash Hit was released for free on iOS and Android on 6 March 2014.^[1][22] The game's music initially had 33 tracks, with Holmquist composing seven more in May 2014 and three after the introduction of new game modes.^[19] The game has continued receiving updates since its initial release in 2014.^[23][24]

Smash Hit has received "generally favourable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic.^[25] Common Sense Media praised the game as "a therapeutic experience" and "utterly hypnotising".^[4] Pocket Gamer named Smash Hit as one of the hardest mobile video games.^[6]

The game's physics were praised by reviewers.^[a] They have, however, commented that the game does not offer much beyond its shooting mechanics, which Tommaso Pugliese of Multiplayer.it  [it] considered a negative aspect of the game.^[5][11] Trevor Sheridan of AppleNApps said that the game stands by its name, but he underlined the game's difficulty when moving through narrow spaces.^[8] Writing for Gamezebo, Nadia Oxford also stated that the player's hitbox could be hard to track down.^[7] Harry Slater of Pocket Gamer saw the game as entertaining, but said that it contains "moments that'll make you curse".^[11] According to Alex Beech of AppSpy, the checkpoint system ultimately undermined the endless mode scoreboard idea.^[23] Writing for MacLife, Andrew Hayward added that initial checkpoints could be toiling to players without the in-game purchase when constantly replaying the game.^[9]

Reviewers also commended the game's visuals, music, and sound effects.^[b] Michelle Starr of CNET described the glass-shattering effect as "brilliant", while Pugliese viewed them as detailed and comprehensive.^[1][5] Hayward commended the game's minimalistic looks, as well as glass-shattering effects.^[9] Starr also said that the game's graphics and mechanics were refined in contrast to Mediocre's previous games, such as Sprinkle and Granny Smith.^[1] Chris Carter of TouchArcade hailed the game's graphics as "straight out of a mythical land", while Sheridan regarded them as ultra-modern, complimenting the game's gradients and fog textures.^[3][8][27] Charlie Miller of 148Apps saw the shattering sounds as "satisfying" while describing the game's music as fitting its ambience.^[13] Pugliese and the Southern Daily Echo noted that the game's music was well adapted to its graphics.^[5][26]

Smash Hit was the most downloaded video game on iOS in March 2014, while on Android devices, it was the sixth most downloaded video game.^[17][28] According to Mediocre, Smash Hit was downloaded more than 100 million times by October 2015.^[10]

CNET and Apple Inc. rated Smash Hit as one of the best mobile video games of 2014.^[29][30] Smash Hit received honourable mentions for the Independent Games Festival's 2015 Main Competition.^[31]

Mediocre released an adaptation of the game for Samsung Gear VR, titled Smash Hit VR, for free in 2015.^[32][33] "We had envisioned a VR version even before the mobile release, and when the Gear VR started to gain some traction we felt it was a good fit", Gustafsson commented. Gustafsson also revealed that levels had to be somewhat redesigned due to the revamped shooting system. Ian Hamilton of UploadVR said that the virtual reality adaptation of the game is "a great showpiece for family and friends as an introduction to virtual reality".^[10] The game was also later released for Oculus Rift and Oculus Go headsets.^[34][35] Scholars Margherita Antona and Constantine Stephanidis reported that no differences in difficulty were seen between the mobile and virtual reality versions of Smash Hit.^[36]

Mediocre worked on another game involving balls, PinOut, which was released in October 2016.^[37][38] The studio was closed in 2017, after which Gustafsson began working on creating a game using destructible environments with voxels.^[39] He hired Mediocre's additional designer, Emil Bengtsson, to work on his Teardown game.^[40] Like Smash Hit, the gameplay of Teardown was modelled around the game's technology, in this case, destructive voxel technology.^[41] Teardown was released in 2022.^[42] Holmquist composed its music and sound effects; he used placeholder sounds from Smash Hit that were ultimately unused in the game.^[43]

• Official website