Smash Hit

Smash Hit is a first-person 3D rail shooter and endless runner video game in which the player travels forward and must shoot metal balls to destroy glass obstacles while conserving their supply, as the game ends when the player runs out of balls. Colliding with an obstacle results in the loss of ten balls. The player can gain more balls by shooting at crystals, with the number of balls given depending on the crystal's shape. As the player advances, dynamic music plays in the background.

By default, the player shoots one ball at a time, but can shoot up to five at once by smashing a consecutive sequence of crystals; missing a crystal or sustaining damage breaks the combo mechanic and resets the number of balls to one. Regardless of the number fired, each shot only deducts one ball from the player's ammunition. The player can also gather power-ups and activate them for a limited amount of time. Each power-up gives a special effect when activated, such as providing the player an endless supply of balls, making all their balls explosive—which causes larger chunks of glass to break—or slowing down the game's speed.

Smash Hit was developed and published by the Swedish indie studio Mediocre, co-founded by Dennis Gustafsson and Henrik Johansson in 2010. The studio previously developed the Sprinkle video game series and Granny Smith. Gustafsson programmed the game, while Johansson was its artist and level designer. Douglas Holmquist composed the game's soundtrack and produced its sound effects.

Gustafsson and Johansson began developing the game in 2012, and 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. Gustafsson helped Holmquist by working on the game's acoustics. Instead of using OpenAL or OpenSL audio application programming interfaces, he opted for creating a custom mixer to fully control the game's surrounding effects and audio processing. Gustafsson implemented the game's reverberation and echoing systems, and the game's camera is harmonised with the dynamic music.

Smash Hit has received "generally favourable" reviews, according to the review aggregator Metacritic. CNET and Apple Inc. rated Smash Hit as one of the best mobile video games of 2014. Smash Hit received honourable mentions for the Independent Games Festival's 2015 Main Competition.

The game's physics engine and gameplay were praised by reviewers. it  considered a negative aspect of the game. Denis Zaichenko of Shpil  described the physics engine as flawless and noted that the game differs from other rail shooters because of the engine and rate of fire mechanics. Common Sense Media praised the game as mesmerising with "a therapeutic experience".

Mediocre released an adaptation of the game for Samsung Gear VR, titled Smash Hit VR, for free in 2015. Gustafsson commented that the idea for a VR version was brought up before the game was initially released for mobile; once the virtual reality headset gained popularity, the developers thought it was a "good fit". He also revealed that the levels had to be partially redesigned due to the revamped shooting system. Ian Hamilton of UploadVR said that the virtual reality adaptation of the game is an enjoyable presentation to virtual reality.

The game was also later released for Oculus Rift and Oculus Go headsets in 2015 and 2018, respectively. Computer scientists Margherita Antona and Constantine Stephanidis reported that no differences in difficulty were seen between the mobile and virtual reality versions of Smash Hit.