It looks like Halfbrick Studios were more than aware when Quantum Squid released the trailer of Veggie Samurai, as Slidetoplay.com saw fit to approach the Brisbane game developers to get their response to the blatant Fruit Ninja clone. The Halfbrick guys were a bit taken back at how Quantum Squid were so open about the Fruit Ninja influence...
"Everyone takes inspiration from somewhere, including us. Quantum Squid just seems to have been a bit less subtle about showing where they got their idea! They are naturally free to do what they do, but we're not going to be changing our focus or our development plans at all."
Phil Larsen, marketing and community manager at Halfbrick Studios, expanded on his comment at Slidetoplay.com at toucharcade.com, reiterating his surprise at how much Veggie Samurai borrowed from Fruit Ninja, particularly the main gameplay mechanic (not to mention the game modes or even the font type used in the Fruit Ninja's logo). From Toucharcade.com
(Phil) The simple truth is we absolutely expected games to adopt the same slicing mechanic, in the same way that many games use the same mechanics as Flight Control, Doodle Jump, Canabalt etc. We just didn't think the first game to utilise the mechanic would be so very similar to ours in more ways than just the gameplay style. Again, QS is free to do what they do and make their game, but by choosing the path of "let's do vegetables instead of fruits, ship it" then people will take notice in a negative way.
Read the article over at Slidetoplay.com!
1 million
I just read they hit the 1 million sales mark in 74 days..... not too shabby at all. Just like Flight Control, that's got to be one hell of a return on investment >< Whilst the big Aussie companies are shedding staff and feeling the pinch on budgets for licensed console work these little guys like HalfBrick and Firemint are LAUGHING all the way to the bank!!
Oh and just looked at iTunes, they are still #6 in US, #3 in Aus so looks like it has some legs left in it.
Well done guys!