ParaLaff Notify me
Coming soon to the App Store and Google Play iPhone & Android · Rated 13+

Lincoln never said this.
Your phone will.

ParaLaff is a fill-in-the-blank word-swap story game for iPhone and Android. Blank out a famous passage, fill the gaps with nonsense, then hear it performed — every word lit as it's spoken, your swaps in yellow highlighter. Your text never leaves your phone.

One email, on launch day. No newsletter, no drip. Demo form — not yet connected.

You're on the list. We'll write once, when the curtain goes up.Demo — nothing was sent. In production this posts to a Serverpod endpoint.

See how it's made

Read aloud with karaoke highlighting

Track 02 · Read it aloud

It reads itself. Word by lit-up word.

Tap play and your phone performs the piece — one word at a time, each lighting as it's spoken, so everyone in the room knows exactly when the mayonnaise is coming. Karaoke, except the lyrics are Lincoln's and the mistakes are yours.

Now

System voices

Your iPhone already owns a cast of voices in every language and accent it speaks. Choose one, set the pace, nudge the pitch, and preview before the room hears it. The highlighting follows whichever voice you pick.

Later

Premium voices

A curated set of higher-fidelity voices arrives in a later release as a ParaLaff Plus add-on. That is the whole promise — no more, no less — and we'll say more when there is more to say.

Per-word highlighting Pause, resume, replay Rate and pitch Every language your phone speaks

Track 03 · Share it

Made for the group chat. Or the whole room.

Every finished ParaLaff exports two ways, and both are free forever: a share card — one crisp image, your swaps in highlighter, the source credited — and a karaoke video, 9:16 and captioned, that performs itself wherever it lands. You share out. Nobody scrolls in. That is the entire social network.

The feed

Tonight's set list.

Open ParaLaff and the feed is what is playing: other people's finished ParaLaffs, newest first. Follow whoever makes you laugh. One button in the corner puts you on stage.

The Gutenberg Remix@gutenbergremix Gettysburg, 1863

Four score and seven years ago our plumbers brought forth on this trampoline, a new sandwich, conceived in Liberty.

1,908 146 0:14
Roseline Vance@roselinevance Moby-Dick, 1851

Call me Gerald. Some years ago — never mind how moistly precisely — having little or no pocket lint in my purse…

214 31 0:22
Quiet Cartographer@quietcartographer Austen, 1813

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single badger in possession of a good trombone, must be in want of a nap.

642 88 0:17
The button in the corner of the feed. It hands you a blank passage and the stage.
Roseline Vance
@roselinevance

Ruining the classics respectfully since Tuesday. Adverbs a speciality.

47ParaLaffs
1,204Followers
318Following

What goes on the bill

Only ParaLaffs made from the built-in library — Austen, Melville, Dickens, Lincoln. Out of copyright, so ruining them in public costs nobody anything.

What stays backstage

Anything you pasted or photographed. That text never leaves your phone, so Publish is not offered for it.

House rules

Rated 13+. Report any ParaLaff, block any account, and a person reads the reports.

Track 04 · Make one

Four moves from famous to ridiculous.

The whole game takes about as long as reading the passage the honest way. Which is the last time you'll read it the honest way.

Pick a passage

From the library — pre-1930 classics, famous old speeches, US government documents — or paste anything. Plus members can point the camera at a page.

Slide

On-device AI tags every noun, verb, adjective and adverb — nothing is uploaded. You decide how many of each to blank out. Two nouns and one adverb is restrained. Nine is a party.

Fill

The blanks arrive shuffled, so you can't see them coming. Type a word, roll the dice, or pick from a dictionary. Some blanks know what they used to be: "A colour", "A vehicle", "A food".

Reveal

Your words drop back into the passage in yellow highlighter. Read it, hear it, share it, then tap Play again — the blanks land somewhere new every time.

Track 05 · Library and dictionaries

Old words in, new nonsense out.

The library is chosen so nobody's lawyer needs to hear about it; the dictionaries are chosen so the dice never lands on something dull.

The library

  • Pre-1930 classics

    Austen, Carroll, Melville, Dickens and company — public domain, cleanly typeset, and remarkably tolerant of being interrupted by a trombone.

  • Famous old speeches

    The Gettysburg Address is the house favourite. Everything here is pre-1930, which is why Lincoln appears so often and nobody more recent does.

  • US government documents

    The Constitution's preamble, the Declaration, and other papers your government has already paid for. Federal prose has never been this wobbly.

  • Anything you paste

    A text message, a recipe, the wedding speech you were sent for "feedback". A few a day are free; unlimited with Plus.

  • Anything you photograph Plus

    Point the camera at a page and the words come off it. Menus, plaques, the back of a cereal box — all fair game, all processed on the phone.

The dictionaries

Built-in English Space Opera Galactic Adventure Fantasy Quest Slang Spooky Seasonal packs Community custom

Every dictionary knows its parts of speech — and its categories. When the original word was a colour, a vehicle or a piece of furniture, the blank says so:

A colourA petA piece of furnitureA vehicleA body partAn article of clothingA holidayA celebrityA foodA drinkA placeA jobAn animal

"A celebrity" is filled from invented personas — a reality-TV chef, the local weather presenter — because nobody real needs to be in your ParaLaff without asking.

The dice knows the difference. A vehicle blank rolled from Space Opera gives you a shuttle, not a milk float. Roll it from Spooky and you get a hearse. Community dictionaries exist too, though the ones we feature are all our own.

Track 06 · Themes

Dress the stage for the occasion.

A theme restyles the game and the result — palette, type, decorations, and the highlighter itself — with ambient flourishes and a sound effect or two, kept quiet so the story stays the star.

Halloween

Call me Pumpkin. Some years ago — never mind how long precisely…

Valentine's Day

It is a truth universally smooched, that a single man…

Christmas

Four score and seven reindeer ago our fathers…

Birthday

We the Balloons of the United States, in Order to form…

Suggested by the calendar

Open the app in late October and it will gently propose Halloween. You can always say no, or pick a Birthday theme in March because it's your birthday in March.

Pairs with a dictionary

Halloween plus the Spooky dictionary is the obvious double bill. Nothing stops you dressing a Space Opera ParaLaff for Valentine's Day.

Starter set free, the rest with Plus

A handful of themes ship free. The full collection — with its font packs, highlight styles and sound effects — is part of ParaLaff Plus.

Track 07 · Pricing

Honest prices. No ads for anyone who pays.

The game is free. The stagecraft is not. Sharing is never, ever behind the curtain.

Free

$0

The whole loop, on the house.

  • Full core loop on a curated starter library
  • A few paste-your-own-text ParaLaffs a day
  • System voices with karaoke highlighting
  • Share card and karaoke video export
  • Starter themes and the built-in dictionary
Notify me
Annual first

ParaLaff Plus

$24.99/year

or $4.99/month · 1-week free trial

  • Camera capture: photograph any page
  • Unlimited custom text and the full library
  • All themed dictionaries and font packs
  • All visual themes, highlight styles and premium voices
  • Zero ads
Notify me at launch

Lifetime

$59.99 once

Everything in Plus, forever.

  • Every Plus feature, no renewal
  • Every future theme, dictionary and font pack
  • Zero ads, permanently
  • Future metered voice minutes sold separately
Notify me

House rule: any payment removes every ad, forever. Nothing sold as a one-time purchase is ever moved behind a subscription later.

Track 08 · Questions from the floor

Before you take the mic.

Who is it for? What's the age rating?

ParaLaff is rated 13+. The library is public-domain and government text, the first-party dictionaries are all family-presentable, and the funniest word in most rooms turns out to be "trombone". Grown-ups tend to laugh hardest.

Where does my text go?

Nowhere. The parts of speech are tagged by a small AI model running on your phone, and the passage is never uploaded — not for tagging, not for the dice, not for read-aloud. Your text never leaves your phone. The only things that go over the network are signing in, downloading the model once, and any purchase you choose to make.

What's actually free?

The full game on a curated starter library, a few paste-your-own ParaLaffs a day, your phone's own voices with karaoke highlighting, and — always — the share card and the karaoke video. Plus adds camera capture, unlimited text, every dictionary and theme, premium voices, and removes ads. Paying anything removes ads forever.

Android?

Yes, on day one. iPhone and Android launch together rather than one trailing the other. Leave your email above and you'll hear when they land.

Is there a feed? Can I follow people?

Send it where you like — a share card or a karaoke video — to the six people who'll actually get it. Or publish it to the feed and let the room find it. Both are free, and nothing is published unless you tap Publish.

Whose voice does the reading?

Your iPhone's built-in voices, in whichever language and accent you choose, with adjustable rate and pitch. A curated set of premium voices is planned for a later release as a Plus add-on. That's the extent of what we're promising about voices.

Encore

Be there for opening night.

One email when ParaLaff lands on the App Store. Then we leave you alone to ruin the Gettysburg Address in peace.

Coming soon to the App Store and Google Play Demo form — not yet connected.

You're on the list. We'll write once, when the curtain goes up.Demo — nothing was sent. In production this posts to a Serverpod endpoint.