How Fruit Ninja maker Halfbrick Studios sliced its way to the top

My dad loves Fruit Ninja. Yes, my 50-year-old career-soldier father who’s also especially fond of playing slot machine games on Facebook. In fact, he likes slicing bananas so much that he would beg for my brother’s phone just so he could achieve that 5-hit combo.

That’s when you know a game has gone really mainstream.

Although not much of a fan myself (I’ve spent more time on Angry Birds), I was intrigued to hear from the founders of Australian games company Halfbrick Studios, the people behind Fruit Ninja, when they visited Singapore to talk to game developers. The event, aptly called Developer Dojo, was organized by Microsoft Singapore and tech blog e27.

After all, very few game studios have amassed 300 million downloads on one game and then followed that up with another mobile hit, Jetpack Joyride, which is a success in its own right with 14 million downloads.

I had to hear for myself how they did it. Here’s what I’ve distilled from the one-day session on 15th September.

Focus on game design. Graphics and technology are secondary.

Many game studios have focused on pushing the envelope of graphics and technology. Halfbrick, on the other hand, decided that game design would be what sets them apart from the crowd, said Shaniniel Deo, the company’s CEO.

This early decision allows them to focus on what matters most: Creating a good product. It guided their decision-making process even when they achieved success with Fruit Ninja, where using the right human-machine interface is key to the game’s success. So, they made a conscious decision not to port the game over to platforms that would fundamentally change the gameplay experience.

Even when they did port something over, they would perfect the gameplay and make sure it works for the platform. When Halfbrick created a version of Fruit Ninja for XBox360 Kinect, they made sure that users were still able to chop the fruits accurately. Compromising on that front would’ve let many users down.

Phil Larsen demos an early Fruit Ninja prototype. The game debuted with Halfbrick Fridays, a regular event at the company where any employee can pitch ideas and develop prototypes.

Game developers should promote their studio and not just their game.

Some game developers tend to hide behind their games. That may not be the best approach for fledgling game studios. Phil Larsen, CMO of Halfbrick, shared his experience of attending the Game Developer’s Conference before Fruit Ninja was launched.