Samsung TV / game / 3PT CONTEST
REVIEW
3PT Contest on Tizen is a casual rack-shooter for the couch.
Desoline's free Samsung TV game recreates the NBA All-Star three-point contest in a slim remote-friendly package — five racks, a timer, and not much more.
BY THE APP COMRADE DESK · MAY 11, 2026 · 3 MIN READ
3PT Contest is a small game with a clear idea. Desoline has taken the most televisible event in basketball — the NBA All-Star Weekend three-point shootout — and rebuilt it as a single-button Samsung TV game you can finish in a minute. Five racks of five balls each, a one-minute clock, money balls on every fifth shot, and a 40-point ceiling. That is the entire product, and on Tizen that focus is more virtue than limitation.
The Samsung TV remote is a famously awkward gaming input. Most attempts to port arcade titles to the platform stumble on the gap between what a directional pad can express and what the genre expects. 3PT Contest sidesteps the problem by picking a format that needs almost nothing from the remote — one button, a sense of timing, and the willingness to rack up another round when this one ends at 14 points. The pleasure here is in the rhythm.
What it doesn’t have, and likely should, is a reason to come back. There is no roster, no career mode, no online leaderboard surfaced in the store metadata, and no shareable score. The five-rack loop is identical every time, and once you’ve found your personal-best ceiling on the remote, the game has shown you everything it has. For free, with no ads and no in-app purchases, that’s a fair trade for ten minutes — and a thin one for ten hours.
3PT Contest knows exactly what it is — five racks, a timer, and a button to shoot. The pleasure is in the rhythm, not the depth.
FEATURES
3PT Contest is a single-mode basketball game built around the NBA All-Star Weekend's three-point shootout format. The player rotates through five racks of basketballs spaced around the three-point arc, shooting against a one-minute clock. Each rack contains five balls; the last ball on each rack is a "money ball" worth two points instead of one, and a special all-money-ball rack adds further bonus scoring. Total possible score follows the official contest's 40-point ceiling.
Controls are pared down to the Samsung TV remote — a single action button to release the shot, with timing or hold-strength as the input variable. There is no roster of NBA players, no franchise mode, no online leaderboards visible from the store metadata, and no in-app purchases. The game is free with no announced advertising.
Visually it sits in the territory of mobile-port arcade games adapted to TV — a stadium backdrop, a static shooter avatar, and an emphasis on score-meter feedback rather than full 3D animation. Desoline lists the title under Tizen's Games category with a 2026-03-16 release date.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
The premise is the strength. The three-point contest is the most TV-friendly format in basketball — short, repeatable, low-stakes, and entirely about rhythm. Translating it into a single-button Tizen remote game is a sensible match for the platform's input constraints, and the round structure gives a natural session length that suits a smart-TV game far better than anything trying to be a console-grade sports sim.
The price tag matters here. A free, no-ads, no-IAP game on Samsung's TV store is rare enough that it lowers the bar for "worth trying" considerably. Desoline has shipped the kind of focused single-screen arcade title that the Tizen store has historically lacked — small, specific, and respectful of the user's time.
ROOM TO IMPROVE
The format runs out of room quickly. Without a player roster, unlockable arenas, an online leaderboard, or a head-to-head local mode, the loop is the same five racks every session. After the first half-hour, the only progression is your own personal-best score — and on a TV remote with limited input nuance, the ceiling on skill expression sits low. A leaderboard or weekly contest would extend the life of this dramatically.
Production values are modest. The store listing offers no screenshots or featured image at the snapshot date, which makes it hard to evaluate the presentation before installing. A 3D crowd, sound design with a real arena ambience, and a few unlock-as-you-play visual flourishes would move this from "novelty" to "reach for it again next week."
CONCLUSION
Install 3PT Contest if you want a ten-minute basketball palate cleanser on a Samsung TV and the price of free is doing real work in the decision. Skip it if you want depth, rosters, or a reason to come back daily. The right next step is a leaderboard and a couple of unlockable courts — both feasible upgrades. As-is, it's a competent free arcade title on a platform that doesn't get many of them.