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A 'Fruit Ninja' movie might really happen
Now that the Angry Birds movie has proven to be a financial success, other studios want in on the mobile-games-as-movies trend. New Line Cinema has secured the rights to a Fruit Ninja movie already in development by game creator Halfbrick Studios and producer Tripp Vinson (of San Andreas and Journey to the Center of the Earth). Not surprisingly, this will involve a lot more than watching an off-screen assassin cut produce into pieces -- the project is currently envisioned as a live-action comedy that sees a ragtag group becoming Fruit Ninjas to, naturally, save the world.
'Fruit Ninja' studio removes 'designer' as a role
Fruit Ninja studio Halfbrick recently fired its final two designers, as reported by Kotaku Australia on Monday. This marks a structural shift for the company: Halfbrick doesn't plan on hiring new designers and instead wants its artists, programmers and other employees to work on game design together, Chief Marketing Officer Nicholas Cornelius tells Engadget. "The roles were made redundant and not laid off," he says. "This is because of a change in the way teams will work at Halfbrick."
Fruit Ninja to see major overhaul in next mobile update
Hit produce-gutting action game Fruit Ninja will soon see a major update across iOS and Android platforms adding several new gameplay elements and unlockables, developer Halfbrick announced this week. "The team has thrown away the tired menu and UI designs, ensuring the steps between playing, equipping new gear, and using social features are all streamlined," Halfbrick said in a recent statement. "Now, almost every item will have a unique effect on gameplay, which has effectively broken the score ceiling and added an exponential amount of depth and strategy to slicing." The update allows players to pair unlockable Blades and Dojos for various game-altering effects, similar to the gameplay structure adopted by the studio's endless runner Jetpack Joyride. The new "Great Wave" dojo spawns large groups of fruit during each session, for instance, while the Autumn Blade summons a screen-clearing tornado after players slice a pineapple. Fruit Ninja's update is slated to launch in October. [Image: Halfbrick]
ESRB rates Fruit Ninja Kinect 2 for Xbox One
The ESRB has issued a content rating for the unannounced Fruit Ninja Kinect 2, suggesting that a sequel to Halfbrick's fruit-eviscerating action game will soon find its way to the Xbox One. The Australian Classification Board outed the follow-up in a rating issued last month. Neither developer Halfbrick nor publisher Microsoft has issued a statement confirming the game's existence or upcoming release. Prior to its Xbox 360 Kinect debut in 2011, Fruit Ninja was a hit on mobile platforms, topping the App Store sales charts and spawning the animated film-based spinoff Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots. Teetotalers beware: the ESRB warns that Fruit Ninja Kinect 2 features oblique references to alcohol in on-screen text descriptions like "In Eastern Africa you can buy banana beer." Scandalous! [Image: Halfbrick]
The TUAW Daily Update Podcast for June 20, 2014
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get some the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the player at the top of the page. The Daily Update has been moved to a new podcast host in the past few days. Current listeners should delete the old podcast subscription and subscribe to the new feed in the iTunes Store here.
Halfbrick giving away its iOS games for a limited time, even Fruit Ninja
The game developers at Halfbrick have created a large catalog of fun, quirky iOS games over the last four years that span a wide range of genres and tastes. You want to kill waves of zombies in adorable fashion? Age of Zombies is right there for you. Fantasize about destroying fruit like a martial arts master? Fruit Ninja turns your fingers into swords. Maybe you're a casual gamer who just wants to help jumping fish fight against an ever-changing climate? Fish Out of Water! is ready to fill that need. And now, for a limited time, you can fill those needs for free. Normally Halfbrick's game's are $0.99, meaning you'd need $10 to try them all, but for a limited time the company is giving away all their titles for free. Age of Zombies, Band Stars, Birzzle Fever, Colossatron: Massive World Threat, Fish Out of Water!, Fruit Ninja (even HD), Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots, Jetpack Joyride, and Monster Dash. You can download the whole collection here. While the sale is just short term, it would make sense for Halfbrick to make this their standard pricing. Each title features in-app purchases for new weapons, costumes, and bonuses; purchases that make sense once you've found yourself addicted to a title. Thankfully each of these games is a blast to play even if you never lay down any extra coin to buy power ups, so head over to the App Store and download these titles before you have to pay for them. Here's a video Halfbrick released to promote the sale. This sale is only for iOS, but maybe if your friends who use Android ask nicely, you'll let them play on your iPhone.
Fruit Ninja developer goes into publishing with Birzzle Fever
Halfbrick, developer of Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, enters the worldwide mobile publishing arena with Birzzle Fever. All you really need to know about the game is it's a colorful chibi bird matching explosion simulator. The free to play game will be available this Thursday on the App Store for iDevices. As for Halfbrick's expansion into publishing, the developer explains it was a "natural move." The company states, "A special team will be dedicated to working with developers who are interested in having their games published, providing analysis and recommendations during all stages of development." Up next from Halfbrick's publishing arm is Yes Chef, which looks like Candy Crush, except with nutritional value and French flourishes.
Jetpack Joyride devs unleash Colossatron on Dec. 19
Halfbrick Studios will launch its next game, Colossatron: Massive World Threat, on December 19, the developer announced in a new trailer. The game was first announced in July at PAX Australia for iOS, though the Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride developer's latest announcement now includes both Google Play and the Amazon App store as the game's other destined platforms. Colossatron gives players the ability to smash through cities as a giant robotic snake, thwarting resistance efforts from one General Moustache and his army. Halfbrick promises a "chaotic campaign, epic boss fights, devastating weaponry, survival challenges" and other features in the mobile game. No price was listed for the game.
Halfbrick wants to watch it all burn with Colossatron: Massive World Threat
The makers of Jetpack Joyride and Fruit Ninja want you to destroy the planet. From the halls of the first annual PAX Australia comes Colossatron: Massive World Threat. Sure, the game's whole mass-destruction-via-aliens concept sounds a lot like Rampage, but as the announcement trailer shows, it's oh so much more. Players take control of a modular robotic snake, using all manner of upgradeable weapons and abilities to wreak wanton top-down chaos on an unsuspecting populace. The goal? Causing as much property damage as possible. Think of it as a modern take on Godzilla with a campy anime slant and you're mostly there. The Queensland, Australia developer's latest will be playable at its booth for the duration of the show. Can't make it to the expo? Skip past the break for the debut video.
Colossatron: Massive World Threat coming from Halfbrick
Colossatron: Massive World Threat was just announced for iOS at PAX Australia by Halfbrick, creators of Fruit Ninja, Jetpack Joyride and various other insanely successful and addictive mobile games. As the name might (?) suggest, Colossatron is a giant robot snake thing seemingly bent on global destruction. TouchArcade has the description of the game: The player, rather than trying to stop Colossatron, is tasked with keeping the behemoth fully armed and operational by attaching colored segments to its body as they fly in from off screen. Each segment's color and relative position to other segments dictates the effect that it'll have on the creature as a whole. Segments can also combine into more powerful segments based on color and proximity. We're keeping a cold, metallic tympanic membrane to the ground for more information about the game's release window and pricing structure. Update: Halfbrick has sent us the game's official announcement press release, which has been tucked away behind the break. It teases that players will be able to "combine their destructive powers, with additional competitive and cooperative social features revealed soon," so we'll see what that's all about when further details are divulged "in the coming weeks."
Daily iPhone App: Fish Out of Water! makes a gorgeous splash in a shallow pool
Halfbrick Studios is one of the most popular developers on the App Store, so much so that I can guarantee you've played their work before: Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride are their two biggest titles. And now, the Australian developer has released a brand-new iOS game, called Fish Out of Water, available on the App Store now for US$0.99 cents. Jetpack Joyride is one of my favorite iOS games of all time, and one of the main reasons for that is just how polished it is. It just oozes quality, and Fish Out of Water has that same feeling. The game runs perfectly, looks great and just bubbles over with well-crafted art and design work. Unfortunately, Fish Out of Water's weakness is that it's simple, almost too simple to stay interesting for long. Here's the game's core: You throw fish. That's it, really -- the goal is to try and throw fish and earn both "skips" (where your fish tap across the water) and "distance", which you're then rated on by a panel of cartoony crabs. Your rating is placed up against a daily leaderboard for the world and your own league, and that's the game. There are six fish to toss in total, and they each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and the game boasts an excellent weather system that's set to the clock every single day. But even with those complications, this game doesn't change all that much: You just toss fish, as hard as you can, at the right angle. Once you've tossed a fish, you can hit a boost button to try and speed it up at certain times, but in my experience, it doesn't matter much. Even when you rate high or low, the game doesn't do a great job of telling you what you did wrong or right, leaving the whole contest to what basically seems like chance. The game's fun for a few throws, and it does do a solid job of keeping you interested -- you level up by performing various missions, and there are tons of social elements in there, so much so that you're notified as you play on how your friends are doing and whether you're beating them or vice versa. Halfbrick can't really make a bad game, as far as I'm concerned, and Fish Out of Water is good. It's just a little boring, is all -- the company opted for casual here, and they certainly hit that target. Hopefully we'll see something a little more involving, with the same amount of quality, from Halfbrick in the future.
Portabliss: Fish Out of Water (iOS)
This is Portabliss, a column about downloadable games that can be played on the go. Halfbrick's Fish Out of Water launches on iOS today and it's unlike any of the studio's previous games. It's a much more casual experience with a far more simple premise that is, by all appearances, aimed at capturing a younger audience.The goal of Fish Out of Water is to see how far you can fling a fish across the ocean. Your score is calculated across three tosses, factoring in both distance and the number of times your fish skipped across the water.%Gallery-183894%
Tank Tactics: The prototype that almost ruined Halfbrick
After Fruit Ninja was finished, the guys at Halfbrick spent almost two years shipping updates. Finally ready to do something new, Halfbrick started doing prototypes. It would be a simple game that everyone at Halfbrick could play competitively.This is when Tank Tactics was conceived. Halfbrick chief creative officer Luke Muscat showed off the first version, made of graph paper and little paper squares, at GDC. He quietly set up the game in a corner of the Halfbrick offices, gave everyone an action point and went back to his desk. Three hours later, commotion ensued – the entire game board was a graveyard.
Jetpack Joyride ascends to two million downloads on PSN
Speaking to Joystiq at GDC today, Halfbrick Chief Marketing Officer Phil Larsen confirmed with that Jetpack Joyride has amassed two million downloads on PSN. Halfbrick unleashed Jetpack Joyride on Sony's network in November 2012, initially as a $3.99 download. In December, the game became free on PSN, quickly rising to its first million downloads by February of this year.
Halfbrick's Fish Out of Water coming to iOS soon
Halfbrick's next mobile game is ready to hit the iOS App store "very soon." That's according to Chief Marketing Officer Phil Larsen, who handed me an iPad running Fish Out of Water, a new game which expects you to fling some fish as far as you can.That's really all it is: you touch a fish to snag it, then swipe to fling. The further your fish goes, and the number of skips it makes on the surface of the ocean, both factor into your overall score, which is calculated from three separate tosses.The fish are not only aesthetically different, they're functionally unique. Pointy fish tend to dive down more depending on the arc of your fling, while the puffy blow fish fella is more prone to skipping across the surface.Fish Out of Water features the same mission system found in Jetpack Joyride, and it's one of the many systems included to fuel replay. The game also has competitive leaderboards through Google+ and Facebook, hourly weather changes and unlockable treasures.Fish Out of Water will debut on iOS devices first for $.99, and though there aren't any ports in the works right now, Larsen said "it's only logical to think it'll be on other platforms later."%Gallery-183894%
Halfbrick teases a new game called Fish Out of Water, more coming at GDC
Halfbrick Studios has posted a quick teaser for a brand-new game on its website, but here's all we know. It's got something to do with fishing. As you can see above, the creators of Jetpack Joyride and Fruit Ninja have something wet and colorful planned for their next title, but outside of a fishy pun (and a title, "Fish Out of Water"), they're keeping the title submerged for now. The buoy floating by says the game will be fully revealed in six days, which means the company will be telling us all about the game at a meeting during next week's Game Developers' Conference. Which is convenient, since TUAW's already got a meeting with them all planned and ready. It's hard to believe it, but Halfbrick hasn't released a completely new game since Jetpack Joyride, which originally appeared on the App Store way back in 2011. So Fish Out of Water, whatever it is, should be exciting to see.
Australian government invests in game industry to halt job migration
Australia's government-funded Screen Australia program plans on investing $20 million into the local video game industry. Gamasutra reports the organization will spend $4-5 million on games production and $2-3 million on supporting business sustainability over the next year.The organization cites the American-owned Firemonkeys, studio-killing LA Noire and Halfbrick (Fruit Ninja, Jetpack Joyride) as successful signs of Australian-developed games – hey, one legit shout-out to Halfbrick out of three ain't bad.Australia has had to spend the past several years reinventing its place in the video game industry. Unfavorable exchange rates for foreign investors caused major publishers to pull console game development out of the country, causing severe job losses over a three-year period. The region has found success focusing on the mobile market.
Jetpack Joyride sells over a million copies on PSN
Fruit Ninja developer Halfbrick announced today that its other baby, Jetpack Joyride, has been downloaded over a million times on PlayStation 3 and PS Vita. The portable PlayStation version of the game has also recently received an update that integrates Twitter support and "performance upgrades."Jetpack Joyride is currently available on... wait, let's try this another way. Jetpack Joyride is currently not available on Xbox 360, Nintendo systems and most brands of toasters.
Jetpack Joyride free on PSN in NA on Monday, today in Europe
Halfbrick's Jetpack Joyride will become a free download on the PlayStation Network beginning today, December 21, in Europe and Monday, December 31, in North America. The game was previously available for $3.99 as a Mini for PSP, PlayStation Vita and PS3.Jetpack Joyride on PSN includes everything found in the game's 1.3 update. Fly, Barry Streakfries, fly as long as you can!
Halfbrick's entire iOS game lineup is free today only
Prolific and popular iOS game developer Halfbrick Studios is getting a jump on the holidays by offering up its entire catalog of mobile games for free today, December 17, only. The list includes well-known names like Fruit Ninja, Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots and Age of Zombies. You can find all of the fabulous freebies on Halfbrick's App Store page In other free game news, Chillingo is making 15 of its titles free for an undetermined amount of time. The list includes Orc: Vengeance, Madcoaster, The Last Driver and 12 more. Chillingo's App Store page has them all. Of course, with the Christmas and New Year holidays fast approaching, it's likely that even more publishers will be making their games free or drastically reducing their prices. Keep an eye on TUAW or follow us on Twitter to find out when that happens. [Via TouchArcade]
