Ah! The good ol’ days of mobile gaming where you would grind hard as heck, get a high score, and destroy your friends. One of the games which I remember is “Fruit Ninja.” It is a classic, 2-D, score-based game, where you would have to score as high as possible without missing any fruit or hitting any “bombs” which appear on the screen. The players are given 3 lives. The ending of the lives results in the game’s finishing, shown with the score the players have achieved.
This was just a basic idea of what the game is. So, without any further due, let’s start.
The blog will be divided into several parts. The parts are listed down below:
- -Studios Behind
- -A lil’ bit of History
- -Slice It and Dice It!!
- -Awards and Accomplishments
- -My Experience and Thoughts
Studios Behind
You might have guessed the studios behind the creation of this game. The creators are Halfbrick Studios. The only studios to have created some of the best of games ever to exist, although the games are now not being played by many players. Halfbrick Studios is an Australian video game developer based in Brisbane. They surely have achieved a lot of awards for their games and have made significant accomplishments.
A lil’ bit History
For a game to be a huge success, it has to be launched on many platforms. Therefore, here we look upon the platforms the game has been released.
The game was first released on iPod Touch and iPhone devices on April 21, 2010, and was subsequently released on iPad on July 12, 2010, like Fruit Ninja HD. Finally, it was released on Android devices on September 17, 2010. On 2 November 2010, an arcade mode update was announced to the versions already released to adjust its gameplay dynamics. Two days later, it was released on platforms available. In December 2010, lite versions of Fruit Ninja and Fruit Ninja HD were released for iOS devices which served as a free demo before buying the game. During the same month, on 22 December 2010, the game was released on Windows Phone 7.
In an interview with Phil Larsen, Chief Marketing Officer at Halfbrick, they stated that different marketing strategies are required due to the quick-release nature of games in iOS applications. “You could have a game rise to the top and fall off in three days. So you want to get it up there at the right time and have the right backup plan to sustain it with updates and further press,” he said.
On January 21, 2011, an update rolled out for Android devices, which added Arcade Mode, leaderboards, and an ice blade to the game. In March 2011, Halfbrick studios announced a Facebook port of the game entitled Fruit Ninja Frenzy. The free-to-play port was published as a beta in April 2011 and was described as “60-second gameplay with many powerups, unlockables, and achievements”. The Facebook version received many updates until the game underwent sunset closure on November 30, 2013.
On August 10, 2011, Fruit Ninja Kinect was released for Xbox 360 console as a downloadable game from Xbox Live Arcade Marketplace (XBLA). It was the first XBLA game to make use of the motion-sensing Kinect controller. To promote the game, a voucher token for the game was included in the retail box of The Gunstringer. The game was then introduced to DLCs on August 24, 2011.
In March 2012, Halfbrick announced the partnership with Bluestacks to make Fruit Ninja’s global debut for Microsoft Windows. The program received millions of downloads within 10 days of release. This was sure a vast number of downloads to accomplish within a matter of 10 days.
Subsequent releases of the game were made on Kinect 2 for Xbox One, Playstation 4, and HTC Vive through Steam Early Access.
The studios have done a pretty job extending the game’s reach to different consoles and platforms, which are unimaginable.
Slice It and Dice It !
In Fruit Ninja, the player slices the fruits that are thrown randomly upwards, with a blade controlled via the touch screen. As the Fruit is thrown onto the screen, the player swipes his finger across it, producing a slicing motion that cuts the fruit in half. If the player succeeds in swiping multiple fruits simultaneously, then the player is awarded extra points, which is called a combo. Thus, a player can use multiple fingers simultaneously to slice open the fruits. The player must slice all the fruits, but if the player somehow misses three fruits, the game ends as a consequent result. Bombs are also occasionally thrown onto the screen to make it challenging for the players, and if the player somehow slices a bomb, the game ends right away.
Another mode is the zen mode. In this mode, the player has to slice the fruits, but there is a timer. The player’s run doesn’t end even when the fruits are left uncut. This mode allows the player to score as high as possible in a 1 min 30-sec timer. Another mode similar to this one, the arcade mode, also features a timer, but there is a catch. Bombs will occasionally be thrown onto the screen, but the bombs do not end the game right away, as seen in Classic mode. Instead, it deducts 10 points from the total score. Also, many powerups are present in arcade mode, such as the timer freeze, a special banana, extra time, etc. Rarely, a pomegranate is thrown onto the screen, which gives players a high amount of score to add to the total score. The pomegranate takes a lot of cuts before giving out the points based on the number of slices.
This type of gameplay sticks players for hours, grinding for the high scores and continuously ranking up the leaderboards. In the end, the player feels satisfied with the progress done. Sometimes, the player may feel anger towards the game while grinding for a lot of time and still not getting a high score.
Overall, a 9.5/10 Gameplay
Awards and Accomplishments
The game which made Halfbrick studios a recognized entity actually has quite a few awards. And the game finished a long way extra than the studios even speculated. Fruit Ninja become nicely acquired with the aid of using critics. The game has a mean rating of seventy-five out of a hundred primarily based totally on 12 critiques on Metacritic, indicating “typically favorable critiques,” and 87% on five critiques on GameRankings. It becomes additionally named certainly considered one among Time magazine’s 50 Best iPhone Apps of 2011. Reviewers have been ordinarily unified withinside the universal fun thing in the game. Levi Buchanan of IGN said that the game becomes “fun, fun, fun” and “an instant pleasure.” Slide to Play’s Chris Reed agreed and felt that the sport becomes best for a while a patron has quick moments of boredom. He likened this to playing the game whilst ready in line for something and said, “it’s going to slice the time in half.” Jim Squires of GameZebo felt the gameplay become easy and addictive.
The iOS version of Fruit Ninja sold more than 200,000 times in the first month; more than a million units were sold in the third month; more than two million units sold in September 2010 and a total of four million in December 2010. The total number of downloads on all platforms exceeded 20 million. In May 2012, it reached 300 million downloads and was on a third of all iPhones in the US. In 2015, the app reached 1 billion downloads. in the week of December 28, 2010. The Xbox Live Arcade version moved more than 739,000 units in the first calendar year. The iPad version of Fruit Ninja was used to rehabilitate stroke patients.
My Experience and Opinions
This game was first introduced to me when I was in a critical condition in Hospital due to Dengue. My father randomly asked me if I wanted to play. Being a small kid, I straight away started playing. By playing this game, I was pretty much relieved, and it helped me recover faster. And from then on, this was my favorite game. I used to grind hours and hours to get a high score that my father couldn’t beat xD.
Onto the opinions, the game is a stress reliever and boredom killer. The aesthetics, sounds, and the pleasant music in the background, damn, they are just awesome!
A 10/10 game from my side. What are your opinions? Comment down below
I will see you in my next blog!