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Smash Hit is a 2014 rail-shooter video game developed and published by the Swedish indie game studio Mediocre. Through the game's twelve levels, the player takes a first-person perspective, shooting metal balls to destroy glass obstacles. The player can also shoot up to five balls at once by smashing a consecutive sequence of crystals and gather power-ups that are activated for a limited amount of time. The game also features a one-time in-game purchase that allows the player to start from any unlocked checkpoint. The game's development team consisted of Dennis Gustafsson, Henrik Johansson, and Douglas Holmquist. A virtual reality adaptation of the game was released for platforms in 2015 and 2018. Smash Hit received positive acclaim from reviewers, who praised its physics engine, graphics, music, and sound effects. CNET and Apple Inc. listed it as one of the best mobile games of 2014. Gustafsson and Holmquist later worked on Teardown after Mediocre closed in 2017. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Adrien Nunez

... that Adrien Nunez (pictured), despite limited playing time, was more highly paid than some NBA draft lottery picks while in college?
... that specimens of Aquilegia daingolica were collected in 1906 and 1909, but it was first described as a new species in 2013?
... that Yanou Collart helped Rock Hudson get medical treatment when Nancy Reagan would not?
... that when Alexander McQueen, following years of criticism for over-reliance on runway spectacles, presented The Man Who Knew Too Much, it was criticised for its lack of theatrics?
... that Lars Chemnitz was one of the first recipients of Nersornaat, the highest honor in Greenland?
... that the principal songwriter of a song on Always Happy to Explode asked listeners to "love it for me, for I cannot"?
... that Daniel Hermann wrote poems on the inclusion of a lizard and a frog in a piece of amber, the eagle in the coat of arms of Poland, and a child suffering from Fraser syndrome?
... that the harsh treatment of Allied prisoners of war in Japan is well known in the West but mostly ignored or glossed over in Japan itself?
... that a cable TV channel in the UK was still broadcasting primarily in black and white as late as 1979?

In the news

Joseph Aoun

Joseph Aoun (pictured) is elected president of Lebanon after a two-year vacancy.
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Indonesia becomes a full member of BRICS.
Justin Trudeau announces his intention to resign as prime minister of Canada.

On this day

January 12: Zanzibar Revolution Day in Tanzania (1964)

Comet McNaught

1659 – The fort at Allahabad was surrendered to the forces of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.
1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: Natal Native Contingent and British troops defeated Zulu forces in the Action at Sihayo's Kraal.
1899 – During a storm, the crew of Lynmouth Lifeboat Station transported their 10-ton lifeboat 15 mi (24 km) overland in order to rescue a damaged schooner.
1967 – Seventy-three-year-old psychology professor James Bedford became the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation.
2007 – Comet McNaught (pictured) reached perihelion, becoming the brightest comet in over 40 years, with an apparent magnitude of −5.5.

John Singer Sargent (b. 1856)
Laura Adams Armer (b. 1874)
Princess Patricia of Connaught (d. 1974)

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Today's featured picture

John Henry Turpin (1876–1962) was a sailor in the United States Navy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was one of the first African-American chief petty officers in the U.S. Navy, becoming a chief gunner's mate on the cruiser Marblehead in 1917. He was transferred to the Fleet Reserve in 1919 and retired in 1925. He is also notable for surviving the catastrophic explosions of two U.S. Navy ships: USS Maine in 1898, and USS Bennington in 1905.

Photograph credit: unknown photographer; restored by Adam Cuerden

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