The studio was in ”big trouble” if something didn’t ”come through soon,” but Fruit Ninja’s simplicity won over the Xbox Live Arcade masses recently.
”Fruit Ninja was a game which was created by writing down a whole list of goals. We wanted to do the exact opposite of Rocket Racing,” said Halfbrick’s Luke Muscat.
”We learned so much from observing Flight Control, Doodle Jump and all these other casual games about making it incredibly easy to play. As such, Fruit Ninja has a four word manual: slice fruit, avoid bombs.” Yes, that really is the game’s entire objective.
”We were in deep strife around the time we started working on this. Halfbrick were right teetering on the edge. If we hadn’t had something come through soon, we were in big trouble,” continued the lead designer.
”So that was the big goal for me, because I felt terribly guilty that I’d lost the company AUD$175’000.” Fruit Ninja became a hit on iOS platforms and released just recently for Xbox 360 using Kinect. Things are looking up for Halfbrick: ”We’ve still got everyone at Halfbrick; we haven’t had to fire anyone. We were actually able to create some new jobs, and it’s really exciting to help be a part of the games industry growing.”
Have you played Fruit Ninja, videogamer?
