''Smash Hit'' is a first-person
rail shooter developed by the Swedish
indie game
An indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. ...
studio Mediocre, and released for
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
and
Android
Android may refer to:
Science and technology
* Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human
* Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system
** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
smartphone
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
s.
Gameplay
''Smash Hit'' is an abstract rail shooter in which the player travels forward at a constant speed, with
dynamic music
In video games, adaptive music (also called dynamic or interactive music) is background music whose volume, rhythm or tune changes in response to specific events in the game.
History
Adaptive music was first used in the video game ''Frogger'' by ...
that changes as the player progresses. The player has to shoot metal balls to destroy glass obstacles, but must aim carefully with a limited supply of ammunition as the
game ends if it ever depletes. Any collision with an obstacle results in the loss of ten balls.
Obstacles can either be directly destroyed with the balls, or otherwise moved out of the way by shooting a button. More balls can be gained by destroying blue glass crystals of various shapes. Players can earn
power-up
In video games, a power-up is an object that adds temporary benefits or extra abilities to the player character as a game mechanic. This is in contrast to an item, which may or may not have a permanent benefit that can be used at any time chosen ...
s and activate them for a certain amount of time. Each power-up gives a special effect when activated, such as giving the player an infinite supply of balls, turning all their balls explosive, or slowing time down.
There is a
combo mechanic in which the player can destroy the same blue crystals used for gaining balls to regain a certain amount of ammunition. Destroying a consecutive sequence of crystals will increase the player's streak, allowing them to shoot as many as five balls at once while only using one ball in their ammunition. Missing a crystal or taking damage ends the multiball streak and resets the player's rate of fire to just one ball.
Successful completion of the main campaign will lead to endless mode, a stage which is repeated infinitely until the player is out of balls.
Reception
On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, ''Smash Hit'' received a score of 80.
Common Sense Media gave the game 5 out of 5, praising it as "a therapeutic experience", and "utterly hypnotizing".
Legacy
In 2015, an adaptation of the game for
Samsung Gear VR titled ''Smash Hit VR'' was released.
The game would receive multiple major updates after its initial release in 2014, including adding new checkpoints and both new singleplayer and local mutliplayer game modes.
See also
* ''
PinOut'' – another game from Mediocre involving balls
*
''Teardown'' – another physics-based game progammed by Dennis Gustafsson
References
{{Reflist, 30em
External links
Official website
2014 video games
Indie games
Android (operating system) games
IOS games
Samsung Gear VR games
Video games developed in Sweden
Lua (programming language)-scripted video games
Multiplayer and single-player video games