Green Leaf Productions is a collaboration between Jack Saunders and Oliver Hepworth-Bell. Green leaf Productions is a design and coding company specialising in iPhone and iPod Touch games, entertainment and utilities. Our aim is to implement our diverse range of skills to bring you professional, elegant and well designed applications for your mobile device!
Gap Year In Europe | A personal blog
For those who know me, I am currently on a gap year before heading off to university this coming September. For those who know me even better, I enjoy making personal and pointless web sites. And, for those who have known me very well indeed, they'll know that whenever there is a cheap offer on domain names, I'll buy a few and make a few random web sites. Cue £0.97 '.eu' domain names on 123-reg.
So, over the last couple of days I have been working on just that: a blog relating to my gap year, which can be found at www.gapyearineurope.eu. From domain name purchase last week to the beginning of production on Sunday, 2 days later and the blog is fully functional (though there are a few little snags here and there that I am still touching up). Considering I am working full time in between, that's quite speedy work!
The joys of Halloween
The joys of Halloween; it has come and gone, and so has the festivities of the event: the trick-or-treating; the costumes; the strange parties fancy dress parties; and the eggs and flour. It was a strange year for me, not in exclusion of the fact that I was working. For work, I was asked to turn up in Halloween fancy dress, which I rushed to get complete before my shift started.
A subtle fancy dress was constructed this year, mostly consisting of a few fake bandages and fake blood – all home made using acrylic paint and tissue paper – thus providing me with an ideal and relatively life-like costume. Despite there being copious amounts of blood adorning my face, I managed to get many second glances, staring faces, and even causing one passer-by - in an evident attempt to be polite - to deem it necessary to ask if I realised that I had cut my face – many more asking if I had been mugged or "had the sh*t kicked out of me in the street".
Aside from that, I also had my first go at artistic pumpkin carving – starting with the basics of course. Using a pumpkin, a large spoon, a drill and a partially blunted carving knife, I managed to construct the above: a space-invaders pumpkin, inspired both by the space invaders street artist and this.
Ahh, the joys of Halloween.
My "Dream" House
All right, I admit it. Green Leaf Apps has been very slack recently; however, things’ll soon be changing. Jack has finished work now so I can pester him to complete PONG over the next few weeks and that should be available by mid October. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for that one.
On a less relevant note, I have recently been finding my way around Google SketchUp – a simple but powerful 3D rendering platform. I recommend the program to any budding 3D enthusiasts as, though restrictive in what you can draw – you must make your image out of flat faces with no spheres, corrugated grooves or pattern generators – the program is intuitive and easy to use.
Above was a design I did of my “Dream Home”. A Tudor styled house with a separated studio and study area and conjoining balcony and walkway. You can also download the original Google SketchUp file by clicking here. (260KB, Google SketchUp required off course!)
Count BotTimer Web Timer
Can't find that pesky kitchen timer? Misplaced that devious cooking counter? Count BotTimer is an online timer for timing all manner of stuff. You can time how long your pizza will take to cook, or how long your coffee will take to brew, but best of all it is free and it is tried, tested and fully compatible with all browsers.
Count BotTimer is a free-to-use online web site for timing all manner of stuff, as well as allowing downloads so the software can be run at home and offline. The software is written in using JavaScript and is therefore light-weight and cross compatible. Why not check it out?
The web site and timer are still in Beta phase and are not 100% completed, but the web site and timer are both fully functional and relatively bug-free. For more, visit www.greenleafapps.com/bottimer.
ChalkPong Stylised Pong
Green Leaf’s Stylised Pong, renamed “ChalkPong”, is finally nearing completion and – in many areas – is now in testing and modification phase. You’d be surprised at how long ChalkPong is taking to make but all the blame can be attributed to Jack who has been apparently busy working for London based graphic and web site design company Poke. Personally, I think he has just been a bit lazy!
Be sure to check back here regularly for more information on Green Leaf developments. We get lonely at times.
Stylised Pong App
Who doesn't love Atari's 1972 video arcade game PONG? Its simple and innovative game play became an instant success and a cultural icon of the times. Immediately recognisable, the game is loved and appreciated by anyone who has grasped the joystick. But wasn't that little black box a bit dull? We at Green Leaf Apps certainly thought so, so we set ourselves a little task: making PONG pretty.
Stylised Pong features all the aspects that made the original PONG so user friendly and lovable: clean, simple 2D graphics; nothing but two paddles and a ball; varying angles of collision on the pads; and a slowly increasing speed to challenge even the most able of players.
Stylised Pong includes a few little additions as well, though. Carefully drawn graphics and backdrops give the game the pleasing aesthetics demanded by the iPhone and iPod Touch and, what is more, Stylised Pong is completely free! Stylised Pong: like PONG, but made pretty…
For more information on Stylised Pong, visit www.greenleafapps.com.