Fruit Ninja: how the slice-and-dice game reached 1bn downloads

Australia's Halfbrick Studios reflects on how it struck gold with an app perfectly timed to showcase the pleasures of touchscreen devices

Fruit Ninja has just turned five. The slice-and-dice game has been downloaded more than a billion times. That's no small number, so its Brisbane-based creator, Halfbrick Studios, celebrated with cake.

"One of the guys here who was from the team that made Fruit Ninja, his wife makes cakes," says Halfbrick's chief executive, 40-year-old Shainiel Deo.