Chopsticks is the latest app developed by Citrus Suite for Penguin Group USA.
Read more here…
Wall Street Journal
Los Angeles Times
Chopsticks Tumblr
Penguin Teen
Amazon
Citrus Suite blog post Chopsticks in the Wall Street Journal

About Chopsticks
Glory is a piano prodigy. After her mother died, she retreated into her music. Her father raised her with the goal of playing sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall and across the globe. Brilliant and lonely, Glory is drawn to Frank, who moves in next door.

Musical notes reveal treasured mementos and stolen secrets as Glory loses herself in Frank’s paintings and drawings. Links bring the music of their shared mix CDs to reality. Vibrant videos play the shows and clips they watch together and breathe still photos to life. Scrapbook images move as the text flows from Spanish to English. Their late-night IM conversations whisper, blinking down the screen. Frank becomes Glory’s connection to the world—and her escape from reality.

Before long, Glory is unable to play anything but the song “Chopsticks”; F and G notes moving closer together, and farther apart.

Glory disappears. But nothing is what it seems. And we must decide what is real, what is imagined, and what has been madness all along…

A breathtaking cohesion of images, songs, videos, letters, love and loss, the Chopsticks app draws on a full spectrum of media to create a fully immersive novel experience.
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“…seeing deceits and red herrings laid bare in photographs and documents, rather than reading about them, makes the book’s punches hit hard.” –PW

“Spellbinding and inventive, this title will attract teens and compel them to reread and revisit each clue to the hauntingly ambiguous ending.” –SLJ Starred Review

“Eerie and edgy—and effective as Poe.” –Kirkus

Pictures are not only worth a thousand words in “Chopsticks.” In hands as talented as Anthony’s and Corral’s, they’re just as emotionally resonant. –LA Times

“Like the young artistic love it describes, Chopsticks is beautiful and strange and haunting. The story’s crooked path is made luminous by its extraordinary images. Chopsticks is like that one ex lover you never shake off—the one that was a mystery—beautifully distilled.”
–Junot Diaz, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Brief Wondorous Life of Oscar Wao

“Reading Chopsticks is like watching people kiss in the street: it’s private, it’s beautiful, it’s lonely, it’s wild, it’s secret, it’s everywhere and you can’t look away.”
–Daniel Handler, author of Why We Broke Up
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-Touch the music notes to discover interactive features
-Links to songs from their mix CDs/playlists
-Spanish/English text alternates in the notes and letters
-Images move to reveal hidden scrapbook mementos
-Embedded videos play the shows and clips they share
-Text appears to convey quiet conversation
-IM conversations slide down the screen
-Important news clippings and articles underline with a touch
-Moving images breath life into the snapshots

Fresh Ideas, Sharp Solutions.
Citrus Suite develops apps, software, games and produces 3D digital artwork. Developer on iPhone, iPad, Android, HTML5, PC, YouView, IPTV platforms (YouView, Google TV, Apple TV, etc.).

Development of apps from Liverpool, UK.

Citrus Suite has been developing a cool new app with Penguin Books US for release in February 2012.
Based on a dark picture book for mature teens imagined by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral, the app for iPad & iPhone is called Chopsticks and has already started getting some amazing pre-release press coverage.

A feature in the Wall Street Journal tiled Blowing Up the Book details the new crop of digital books that come loaded with interaction, video, audio and animation. Central to the article is Chopsticks…
Wall Street Journal

Chopsticks Tumblr
Penguin Teen
Amazon

“Reading Chopsticks is like watching people kiss in the street: it’s private, it’s beautiful, it’s lonely, it’s wild, it’s secret, it’s everywhere and you can’t look away.”
Daniel Handler, author of Why We Broke Up

“Like the young artistic love it describes, Chopsticks is beautiful and strange and haunting. The story’s crooked path is made luminous by its extraordinary images.”
Junot Diaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Further updates soon.



Fresh Ideas, Sharp Solutions.
Citrus Suite develops apps, software, games and produces 3D digital artwork. Developer on iPhone, iPad, Android, HTML5, PC, YouView, IPTV platforms (YouView, Google TV, Apple TV, etc.).

Development of apps from Liverpool, UK.

Peter Meyers, author of “Breaking the Page: Transforming Books and the Reading Experience“, highlights Wreck This App as “an eBook app done right”.

Peter will be speaking at SXSW on the topic “Making eBooks Smarter: Responsive Page Design” so this is high praise indeed.

Read the full article here…
Scatter/Gather

Peter Meyers’s website A New Kind Of Book is right on the pulse of developments in eBooks and details innovations in the genre.

Since the last update Citrus Suite has developed an Android and Nook Color versions of Wreck This App.

The app has even had a mention in O, the Oprah Winfrey magazine and been nominated best non-fiction app at Digital Book World Conference in New York January 2012.

Fresh Ideas, Sharp Solutions.
Citrus Suite develops apps, software, games and produces 3D digital artwork. Developer on iPhone, iPad, Android, HTML5, PC, YouView, IPTV platforms (YouView, Google TV, Apple TV, etc.).

Development of apps from Liverpool, UK.

The Citrus Suite developed Wreck This App is doing well at the moment reaching number 1 in the UK iTunes entertainment chart and number 2 in the US. The user review scores on the App Store rate the application at 4 out of 5, with the latest update getting 5 out of 5 (as of 3rd November 2011). I’ve gathered a number of links to press coverage & quotes and will update this page from time to time.

PRESS

The Guardian
Wired’s Geek Dad
Featured on Apple’s New & Noteworthy
Hack Education – 10 Interesting and Innovative E-Books/Apps
GoodEReader
Media Bistro
USA Today
Publisher’s Weekly
TUAW
148 Apps
Gizmodo

LINKS

To buy Wreck this App on iTunes, please click here
Citrus Suite Wreck This App blog post here
To see the Wreck this App page on Penguin’s website, please click here
To check out Wreck this App on Keri Smith’s website, please click here.
Wreck This App users on Tumblr here.

QUOTES

“Wreck This App is highly recommended. It has a pleasing interface and is whimsical and fun. In my humble opinion, it’s a great way to pass time, far better than playing Angry Birds or Plants vs. Zombies. “ TUAW

“…as an app it’s clever, brilliantly adapted for iOS and a word I am loath to use since it’s so seldom true – unique.” 148 Apps

“…this app is alot of fun and it is kid appropriate. Think of it as a multiple page activity book that both you and the kids can have alot of fun!” www.wired.com / GeekDad

“Wreck This App is one of the most unique apps I’ve come across. The app is bursting with creativity, and each prompt will speak to people in different ways so the possibilities are practically endless. Wonderfully Unique.” Apple ‘n’ Apps

“Poking holes through drawings, enhancing photos of yourself, and scribbling like a three-year-old are just a few of the ways the app can bring a few moments of childish delight to the user. “ Good eReader

“‘Wreck This App’ and the book from which it springs are complementary, not competitive, experiences” USA Today

“Wreck This App is a wonderful time killer. Imagine it as a children’s doodle book where you’re presented with basic instructions on each page (draw lines, tap the screen, color the page, doodle on the margins of the page) which you can follow or well, not. It’s really up to you. And that’s the appeal of it, hand this to any kid under 7 and watch their eyes light up. Hand this to someone who’s stuck on a train and they might surprise you with the art they come up with. It’s a guided but open-ended notebook, where what you create is up to you.” Gizmodo

“Wreck THIS APP, Totally Rocks! If you don’t know about Wreck This app by Keri Smith you are missing out. If you or your kids are the least bit creative you will want this app in your arsenal for your iPad! Check out the wreck this app, you won’t be disappointed. Even my 5 year old had fun doing her own journal pages.” MommyReview

“…even if you think you don’t have a creative bone in your body, you just may surprise yourself playing with this app.” Kind Over Matter

“…with Wreck this App, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter, there really is no reason to be bored or uninspired ever again.. Now you just need to decide what to play with first! ” Her Library Adventures

USER IMAGES CREATED IN WRECK THIS APP

Fruit
A – Z (by adihrespati) below…

Fresh Ideas, Sharp Solutions.
Citrus Suite develops apps, software, games and produces 3D digital artwork. Developer on iPhone, iPad, Android, HTML5, PC, YouView, IPTV platforms (YouView, Google TV, Apple TV, etc.).

Development of apps from Liverpool, UK.

Citrus Suite recently completed ‘Wreck This App’ on iPad and iPhone for Penguin Books USA. Wreck This App, released globally on Tuesday 19th July 2011, is the studio’s interpretation of Keri Smith’s bestselling book Wreck This Journal. It’s already been reviewed in some great places – USA Today and the Wired Magazine. Wreck This App allows users to get creative, inspired by a series of prompts from Keri Smith. Users can draw, doodle, paint, edit photos and lots more. You can make great art with the app…

To buy Wreck this App on iTunes, please click here

Wreck This App Press & Links, please click here

To see the Wreck this App page on Penguin’s website, please click here

To check out Wreck this App on Keri Smith’s website, please click here.

In fact you should subscribe to the RSS because Keri is an inspirational writer.

What Next For Citrus Suite?
Citrus Suite will be working on an iPhone / iPad game for another US based publisher, and is involved in a Technology Strategy Board project that explores the potential of IPTV platforms such as YouView*.
*YouView – the forthcoming UK TV revolution (?) fronted by Non-Executive Chairman, Lord Alan Sugar.

Fresh Ideas, Sharp Solutions.
Citrus Suite develops apps, software, games and produces 3D digital artwork. Developer on PC, iPhone, iPad, Android and IPTV platforms (YouView, Google TV, Apple TV, etc.).

Development of apps from Liverpool, UK.

Here’s a quick update on our current work at Citrus Suite. We find ourselves involved in a couple of exciting iPhone and iPad development projects at the studio here in Liverpool. One for a huge company in their sector, a cool creative piece that makes us very happy and the other an interactive project to be published by one of the most successful companies you can find on the smartphone app stores. Releases are expected much later in the year and we won’t be disclosing much more than this in the near future. We respect an NDA: there’s a pile of stuff we worked on in 2010 that we still won’t breathe a word of.

We’re also planning mind bending stuff on IPTV (hello YouView or other internet connected TV platform), and are excited about the potential for getting video and TV content out there with a guerilla marketing whiz and bang and straight onto people’s telly boxes. Oh and maybe the odd TV application, seeing as we’re partial to a bit of that.

So there’s quite a bit going on, but we’re on the look out for some other neat projects, whatever they may be and wherever they may come from.

So that’s us for now. We’ve previously billed Citrus as a ‘Video Game Development Service Provider’, a ‘Liverpool Developer on iPhone, iPad and Android’, and to the point an ‘Interactive Development Studio, (with added) Sharp Ideas, Fresh Solutions’ (thanks Jules). We’re all of that and more. I’m up for a cuppa, Moroccan Mint? Drop us a line and we’ll have a brew!

Citrus Suite is developing a number of projects for the YouView platform at the moment. We’re happy to hear that though the launch could be said to be slipping developers will soon be able to see the core spec…

“YouView, a new subscription-free internet-connected TV service for the UK, today confirmed that it will have a product in trial by the end of this year, with a full consumer launch planned in early 2012.

YouView also today confirmed that it will shortly publish its core technical specifications for launch which have required significant technological innovation as well as industry engagement to create a TV platform, based on common standards.
Its open approach combined with the subscription free model sets YouView apart from other TV platforms in the market.”

More here

Interesting story in the Liverpool Echo yesterday about games industry tax breaks. Dr Richard Wilson of TIGA makes a compelling case for the introduction of Government support that will level the playing field for UK based companies like Citrus Suite, letting us compete with the other game development studios overseas.

You can read the Echo feature here and visit TIGA’s website here.

Get down to the Liverpool Design Festival 2010…

Our FREE Liverpool Design Festival App is available now from the iTunes store.

You can find the app here

You can also find out a little more about our commercial app work here.
http://www.citrussuiteapps.com/

Description:
This is the official App for Liverpool Design Festival 2010. Download this app for FREE now.

Download the App to plan and navigate your way around the event programme and become fully immersed in what’s going on.

Citrus Suite develop SmartPhone solutions for companies of all sizes, and our team has experience of producing content and products for the likes of Sony, Microsoft, Disney, BBC, Tesco, Boots, Barbour and many others. We can design, develop and deploy your app in relevant markets and monitor its performance after release.

Citrus Suite Apps