Fruit Ninja, one of my favorite apps, has just gotten even better. If you’ve installed the latest iOS update on your iPhone or iPod touch, you probably noticed this new app that showed up called “Game Center.” It’s a way to connect to other users for multi-player games, but since it’s new there aren’t a lot of apps that take advantage of the Game Center capabilities yet. (Farmville tops the list.) The folks at Halfbrick Studios have gotten an update of Fruit Ninja up already, and introduced a new multi-player version: you and your opponent get one minute to slash as many fruits as you can. The catch is that you only want to slash certain fruit: blue ones give you a point each; red ones cost you three points each; white ones give either player three points, whoever slashes it first. There are also bonuses for cutting at least three fruit in one stroke.
It’s a fascinating way to play, since you’re both watching the same thing but striking at different goals, and you can see the other player’s hacks and slashes as they play. Since I haven’t set up a Game Center friend list yet, I just used Auto-Match to find opponents. After each game, you can request a rematch and the app will keep track of your wins and losses with that opponent. I started up the app just to check on a few things for this post, and ended up spending about half an hour in a heated battle. (I lost, 10 to 9, and decided that was a good time to quit.) Derekdpw, if you’re reading this, I want a re-match!
If you haven’t gotten Fruit Ninja already, now’s a great time to get it. Halfbrick continues to release fantastic updates for it, and if you have an iPad it’s a truly gorgeous game to play. (And the iPad version also has a two-player head-to-head mode.)
What better way to take out all of your fan-boy hatred than by strapping into a World War II era plane and strafing some iPhone nerds into fiery oblivion. While doing this in real life is a) not advisable, b) completely illegal, and c) a caper the likes of which would take almost too much planning, doing so on your Android phone is simpler than ever.Social Gaming Network has ported their WWII dogfight title (note: not Michael Vick in a Hitler suit throwing money at pit bulls) to Android, and unlike most games that come out for various consoles, the live multiplayer element remains cross-platform.
You can tail your iPhone loving buddies while unloading fierce machine gun fire via WiFi, Bluetooth, and 3G data connections. We’re not saying Apple is like the Third Reich or anything, but we’re not asking you not to.
After showing off his Nexus One slot car gas pedal, Grant Skinner is at it again with another Adobe AIR application for Android. This time he has put his own spin on the classic Asteroids, bringing a multiplayer version of the game to the Android OS that he has dubbed Androideroids. The concept is the same as the original, navigate your spaceship through a field of deadly asteroids while blasting them to pieces, but the game is taken a step further with the addition of 8-person multiplayer.
Androideroids is an Adobe AIR application that runs on a desktop computer with controls coming from your Android handset. The handset UI gives you a first person view of the action playing out on the screen. Throw in a few friends and you’ll be blasting your way through space debris while avoiding enemy fire aimed at taking you down. It is a great example of a multiplayer experience for smartphones done right.
Just like his slot car program, Skinner’s Androideroids showcases just how cool Adobe AIR combined with Android can get. While the game isn’t available for the general public, hopefully we’ll be seeing more innovative approaches to gaming and device interfacing coming to market very soon.
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