Fruit Ninja

Fruit Ninja – you played the mobile game, now test your reflexes and wit to build the highest fruit combo! As a Ninja Apprentice to the Honorable Sensei, you will slice fruit in your training. You will also be building combinations of sliced fruit. Sharpen your reflexes and mind to create the best combinations. Can you become the master of combos?

Fruit Ninja Overview

Fruit Ninja is a card drafting, push your luck and reflex testing party game, developed by Halfbrick Studios and published by Lucky Duck Games. Thematically, the game is close to the Android game, but the translation to tabletop has created a completely different feel. Games of Fruit Ninja last approximately 20 minutes for three to six players, with a fun and light-hearted theme shining throughout.

Components and Set-up

The game consists of the following components:

• A Katana handle (reflex tester!).
• Reward cards.
• Golden Apple tokens.
• Fruit Cards.
• Helper Cards.

To set-up a game of Fruit Ninja the following steps are followed:

• Place the Latana in the middle of the table, within equal reach of all Fruit Ninja apprentices.
• Shuffle the reward deck and placed to the side of the game area along with the Golden Apple tokens.
• The Fruit deck is shuffled and 12 cards are dealt to each apprentice.

Once all of these steps are complete the battle for Fruit Ninja Combo master can get started!

Gameplay

A game of Fruit Ninja: Combo Party is played in two to four rounds (depending on the length of game you want). After each round, Golden Apple tokens are awarded and collected, and a new round will begin. Once all the rounds are complete the apprentice with the highest number of tokens will be crowned the Combo Master!

Each round is divided into 11 turns and each turn in Fruit Ninja is comprised of three phases; Fruit Phase, Scoring Phase, and Drafting Phase. During the Fruit Phase, players choose a card from their hand then reveal at the same time. This card is placed on top of the players Combo. Next is the Scoring Phase, where players decide to score or press their luck and increase their Combo.

Drafting Phase sees the players pass their hand to the left. Once two cards remain in each players’ hand the final turn starts, each player selects one card and discards the other. A new round starts and the drafting direction changes.

Phase Detail

During the Fruit Phase players choose a card from their hand to place face down in from of them. All chosen cards are revealed at the same time and if two of the fruits are the same, those players attempt to grab the Katana. The apprentice that succeeds receives a reward card. Any player who incorrectly grabs, or makes the Katana fall will receive a negative Golden Apple token, along with the shame of being an awful apprentice.

Once the card is revealed it is placed on the combo and checked for validity. Combos are validated against the following rules:

• Single Combo at a time.
• Unique Fruit Combo – All fruit must be the same.
• Multi Fruit Combo – No duplicate fruits.

If all those rules are fulfilled the player may add the card to the combo. If the combo is no longer valid, discard the last card from the combo and score it. Once a combo reaches six fruits it must be scored. The bigger the combo the bigger the score. Be careful with drafting, if you end up with the wrong cards you will be minimising your score.

During the scoring phase, players may choose to score the combo they have accumulated. Additional rewards are granted for having valid combos scored, and all of these points are added to give total scores. The apprentice with the highest score will be crowned Fruit Ninja Combo Master!

Fruit Ninja Conclusion

Fruit Ninja is a quick turnaround, tons of fun, and a game ideal for parties or to start a game evening. The game is action-packed but can quite quickly lose steam if played repeatedly. Fruit Ninja is thematically attractive and the components perfectly pay homage to the Android game you love (or don’t).