App O' The Mornin': Fruit Ninja

I think there are approximately 40 million Apple smartphone-type devices out there, and over 1,000,000 copies of Fruit Ninja have been sold. That means that the odds are 40:1 that you already have it already.

And well you should. I resisted the Fruit Ninja temptation at first, since it looked like a piece of one-note twitchware that does very little.

After I finally spent some time with it, I realized that is was a piece of one-note twitchware that does very little, but I didn’t care. I loved it anyway, and have logged a fair amount of time trying to my nudge my top score ever higher.

Fruit Ninja is based on the simple premise that “Ninjas hate fruit.” I don’t want to know why they hate fruit, and I sure hope the developer isn’t planning on spinning this into some revenge-driven storyline based upon the fruit-related deaths of ninja loved ones.

(On second thought, I would like to see that.)

Fruit is tossed in the air, and you use your finger to “slice” it before it drops offscreen. Avoid the bombs and strike multiple fruits for bonus points. You can do it timed, or not-timed, and you can change the color of your blade. Sometimes new fruit appears, and this is more exciting than I’d like to admit. The game is also a bottomless treasure trove of fruit lore and trivia.

This is one of the great dexterity games in the App store. It’s small, simple, and cheap. That’s the point of Apps: they can do one little thing, and because they’re inexpensive and portable, that’s all they need to do. It really is a new kind of gaming.