Oh dear…I just found this group, and apparently it’s going away!

Well, before it’s too late, let me put in my recommendation for Smash Hit from Mediocre. I play it on my iPad Mini; it’s also available for Android from the Google Play store (although I haven’t tried it on my Samsung S4…prefer the larger screen).

This is a brilliant, fiendishly simple game with absolutely stunning graphics. I think it would really appeal to Angry Bird fans, because it all depends on learning to aim and fire metal balls to hit things. The fiendish part is that you are constantly moving forward through an ever-changing (stunning) ethereal landscape, at varying speeds. There are crystals you can hit to gain extra balls (usually 3 or 5 per crystal), and you have to break other objects that block your path (mostly glass, but with fascinating, innovative configurations and motion of their own).

If you don’t break a barrier before you “slam” into it, you lose 10 balls. You keep going until you run out of balls. Simple concept, challenging, fun, and exciting execution.

One nice feature is that there are “checkpoints” between sections. You can save your checkpoints, score, and farthest distance to iCloud so you don’t have to start over from the beginning every time. When you run out of metal balls, you can start again from any checkpoint you’ve already passed.

Here’s a tip: it took me a long time to figure out that I could select a passed checkpoint to start from by flipping the outside “outline” of the structure to the left to reveal higher checkpoints, and then clicking on a checkpoint number. Probably obvious to most people, but it was a mystery to me.

You get better with practice, of course, but it’s always challenging. Because of the forward motion, that varying speed, and the distance to objects, one of the things you have to learn is to “lob” the metal ball in a parabola (much like aiming a canon ball), so that it will hit a target at a distance. You also have to learn how to fire right away as obstacles suddenly appear in your path. And an advanced strategy comes into play with complex moving obstacles: not every obstacle is actually going to cross right in front of your path; you might pass through them or around them or whatever. Knowing when you don’t have to fire at an obstacle can make all the difference.

Completely addicting, really gorgeous animation, predictable improvement as you practice and repeat a level, but new challenges to master in each section. The perfect combination!

And…it’s free!!! No ads, either. I don’t know what more anyone could want from a game…

Please let us know if you play it; I would love to find out what other members thing.

There @birdleader — some action on this group! Maybe it would help to post a news item reminding members that this group is here…new members may not have discovered it, and old-timers may have forgotten about it. Personally, I think this group could be a great resource for all of us, and I’d love to see more participation here.

Let me know if I can help promote it in any way.

Thanks!