I recreated Fruit Ninja as a real 48KB NES program, fully compatible with the NES Zapper. Using 6502 assembly, I cover some solutions to the constraints of the Nintendo Entertainment System, including the limitation of 64 sprites, 4 color palettes, and background creation. Also covered is a deep dive into how the NES Zapper works and how I implement it into my program. Fruit Shinobi is available to download now to run on the NES, Famicom, or your favorite emulator.

Try it for yourself at: https://notin.tokyo/fruit

Relevant NESdev page:
https://www.nesdev.org/wiki/Zapper

How the Nes Zapper in FCEUX
https://github.com/TASEmulators/fceux...

Other Interesting NES forum discussions I found:
https://archive.nes.science/nesdev-fo...
https://archive.nes.science/nesdev-fo...

Zap Ruder in particular is interesting as it does a real time calculation of where the zapper is looking on the screen, turning it into a fairly accurate cursor.
https://pineight.com/nes/#ruder

Disclaimer:
The game "Fruit Shinobi" is a unique title. The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with other games (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

No fruit was harmed in the making of this game.