If you thought that Veggie Samurai went a bit too far in plagiarising Halfbrick Studios' hit App Store game, Fruit Ninja, you may be a surprised to see how a new slicing game called Fruit Slayer has managed to go even further.
While Veggie Samurai surprised Halfbrick Studios by copying Fruit Ninja's core gameplay modes and mechanics so well, the Fruit Slayer developer was fairly open in admitting to copying Fruit Ninja's idea for his heavily inspired game.
Robert Neagu, the developer behind Fruit Slayer explains to PocketGamer...
(Robert Neagu) Well, i used their game mechanics but i added a few changes to it. Mostly things i would want in Fruit Ninja. So, yes, it's deliberate. I know that this is not really a good thing to do but I don't consider myself a competitor to FruitNinja. It's just my version of their application. I'll try to add more stuff in that would differentiate the 2 apps more than it does now.
Robert didn't stop at copying the game mechanics however, as you can see that Fruit Slayer looks extremely close to Fruit Ninja in aesthetics as well, from the colour schemes, the brown cutting board, to the fruit splats and sprays, right down to using the same font type for the logo.
Taking a game's idea and
Taking a game's idea and making it 'better' is one thing, but blatantly ripping off another's brand is just plagiarism. The game virtually looks identical.
What is surprising though is how this game got through Apple's supposedly stringent review process.
Wow! they have even gone as
Wow! they have even gone as far as copying the font on the title, somehow they just want to confuse people into thinking its the same game.
People hear about Fruit Ninja from their friends or see people playing it so they might like to try it. They go to the app store searching for fruit and see a few results and may download the Fruit Slayer game instead because it looks the same.
yeah right
"...but I don't consider myself a competitor to FruitNinja. It's just my version of their application."
Well when you're releasing it to the same market as FruitNinja - on the same platform and store in fact - I'm afraid you ARE competing with them. Especially when you release it for free.
Fruit Ninja definitely has
Fruit Ninja definitely has more polish.