I was just coming here to comment on that. TUAW just did an article on it... http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/20/hands-on-with-fruit-ninja-for-the-iphone/ That site either picks their friends' apps or randomly out of a hat, I really can't tell
while a very similar mechanic, the games play very differently. muxinzi's finger cut game is like a castle defense game where endurance is the key to success. fruit ninja is more a reaction/accuracy game. That said many of the early commends/suggestions in the thread seem prophetic (pick a theme, repackage game etc...) imo, fruit ninja is a much more fun game. Just goes to show that small iterations on the same mechanic can make big differences. sort of like papijump vs doodle jump. arn
40 sales on launch week? Oh man, the more I hear about small time developer sales figures...the more it seems like an uphill battle. I'm trying to circulate forums and find devs in a similar situation as me. First major release...now what...how to promote etc. Seeing stuff like this...puts things in perspective for developers. Your launch week sales figures beat out mine though, so congrats ;-)
To tell the truth Finger Cut looks better than Fruit Ninja (to me). When I saw Fruit Ninja on the front page, I just sort of passed over it, but when I saw Finger Cut, I added it to my iTunes wishlist. Now I'm not sure which to get
As arn said, they are not really competing because despite the similar swipe mechanism they play differently. FingerCut is a slightly more complicated formula and clearly took more time to be designed. Fruit ninja is brutally simple, but also more fun, plus it has gorgeous graphics that make the whole experience better. FingerCut dev could easily add a Fruit Ninja-like game mode (i don't think it would take much time to be coded) and this way would have much more to offer. Still, the game wouldn't probably have the same appeal for the general audience, unless he also does a total graphic revamp.
Sorry, but it really doesn't look very fun to me. The gameplay seems very repetitive and shallow, just swiping over objects. Kind of like a chore. I'm not sure I would download it if it were free. Sorry
Judging from the buzz in the Fruit Ninja TA thread, that would seem a safe bet. I'm curious how much of an impact your choosing to mention the game on the front page had. Do you happen to know if its thread had already taken off before you gave it some love on the front page?
Judging by my limited knowledge of Fruit Ninja (I'll admit that I knew NOTHING 10 minutes ago), it seems that the developer of Fruit Ninja did everything right. This isn't complete accident and Fruit Ninja was already on the radar. Thread opened on the 20th, front page on the 21st. Sales on 21st were substantial enough to let it ENTER in the top 100 under Arcade and Action. Reviews by numerous sites are already in, and the video is amusing, the concept is different and the graphics and gameplay are fun. Most of all, the screenshots, icon and game name are fantastic. As I said, this was not an accident.
They may have done everything right, but seriously... slicing fruit? I'm always amazed to see the sorts of things that end up going viral. I can't imagine that anyone could have predicted this just based on the AppStore description and sample screenshots. If I had to guess, I think the game name (which is strange and eye-catching) is probably helping quite a bit. Speaking of other apps experiencing good fortune, have you done similar research for StealthBomber (currently #1 paid game), despite tons of 1 star written reviews?
Wow, anything with bad reviews but high sales numbers probably means they have had the good fortune of marketing/exposure pushing sales. So even if your app sucks, as long as people know about it...it'll probably sell :-( Good apps don't sell apps, good marketing (or viral marketing) sells apps I guess :-/
Front page reviews/mentions tend to feed the forum threads. In this case, Fruit Ninja had maybe 1-2 pages of responses when we decided to post it. We posted it because we liked it, not because of the forum response. A massive forum response can get an app on our radar, but if we ultimately don't like it, we can't recommend it. Except in this case, Fruit Ninja is actually a pretty good game. Again, I think it got reviews and coverage because it's good. A no-name game getting coverage is not independent of its quality. If the game had sucked, it certainly wouldn't have gone "viral". The original thread would have had 3-4 people who tried it and been "this isn't that good". We wouldn't have posted a review on it on the front page. Other sites probably would have ignored it too. arn
You can say that about almost anything. If Finger Cut had huge success, people would be saying 'seriously... slicing SHAPES?'. Fruit Ninja takes the extra step to add a ludicrous story/description that simply states "Ninjas Hate Fruit!". It is completely irrelevant, with no explanation, but it contains all the info needed for the title. I don't do research as a hobby and I don't know anything about StealthBomber. However, I think developers put too much stock in their ratings and often look for excuses for low sales. Low ratings tend to be a focal point. There isn't any evidence to indicate that low ratings affect sales, as far as I know. StealthBomber seems to prove ratings do not matter.
I was talking more about StealthBomber, if as stated above it is the #1 paid app with tons of 1 star reviews Not fruit Ninja which currently has 5 star reviews ;-)
hi,guys, we are back with our new game zombie slasher our frist game "finger cut!", almost the same week when fruit ninja released, we basicly use the same idea, but fn is soooo much better then ours we did learn a lesson, that is, only a concept cannot make a game standout then we spent half year to make a new game based on the same concept, hope this time, we did something right here is the video the game has two mode classic, you just cut cut and cut, like an endless mode,and each zombie,you just need one slash to kill arcade mode is a little bit harder, but much more fun. some zombie will need more than one slash to finish, if you are not quick enough, too much remain of the zombies will reborn a new one you can use "super cut" in this mode, check the video will be upload soon, we just adding gamecenter now thanks for everyone who gave me great advices,
