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Halfbrick acquires Onan Games, Mandreel cross-platform software

Halfbrick Studios (the makers of popular iOS games like Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride) has announced that it has acquired Spain-based studio Onan Games, whose main project is a system called Mandreel that allows developers to send their games cross-platform to places like Android and the Chrome marketplace, coming directly from the source code on iOS. Halfbrick definitely used Mandreel to port its Monster Dash game around, and presumably used it on a few other apps, so the company has apparently decided to make the partnership official. A press release sent out about the acquisition also says Mandreel will be used to port Jetpack Joyride over to Facebook, so apparently that's a thing that's coming.

Where does that leave other developers who've decided to depend on Mandreel? Halfbrick says not to worry -- the solution will still be able to be licensed out to other developers who need it. Information on how that all works will apparently be coming soon.

Sounds like a solid pickup for both parties. Most of the developers I've talked to about releasing their apps across various platforms have almost all ended up rolling up their own custom solutions for doing so. There are a few different cross-platform firms and services out there vying for developers' business, but in this case, even when Halfbrick uses one of those solutions, the company eventually found it easier just to bring them in-house anyway.