The Dictionary
The whole English language, sorted by part of speech and by category. The dice roll from here by default.
Included
This season's outfit: Plain Paper
Famous words. Ridiculous replacements.
ParaLaff is a fill-in-the-blank word-swap story game for iPhone. Pick a passage, blank out the good bits, fill them from a themed pack, then hear the result read aloud with a perfectly straight face. Your text never leaves your phone.
Coming soon to the App Store
See how it works
Four score and seven hamsters ago our fathers brought forth on this casserole, a new nation, conceived in marmalade, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created sparkly.
How it works
Four steps from Lincoln to lunacy
The whole game happens on your phone, including the clever part. No passage is ever uploaded.
-
Start from a sample:
The Gettysburg AddressAlice's Adventures in WonderlandMoby-DickPride and PrejudiceUS Constitution, PreamblePaste or photograph your ownPick a passage
A pre-1930 classic, an old speech, a federal document, or anything you paste or photograph. The library is curated, public-domain and safely dead.
-
How many of each to blank out?
Create 9 blanksSlide the blanks
On-device AI tags every noun, verb, adjective and adverb. You decide how many of each go missing. Nine is a good number. Nineteen is a cry for help.
-
A nounA colourShuffled — you won't know where it landsnebula-pinkTypeDiceDictionaryA verbFinish ParaLaff
Fill the carousel
The blanks arrive shuffled, so you can't game them. Type a word, roll the dice for one from your pack, or browse the dictionary. Some blanks ask for a colour, a vehicle, a food.
-
Four score and seven hamsters ago our fathers brought forth on this casserole, a new nation, conceived in marmalade, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created sparkly.
Share cardVideoPlay againHear it. Share it.
Your words glow in yellow highlighter. Tap play and the phone reads it aloud, lighting up each word as it goes. Export a share card or a karaoke video — both free, always.
The reading room
A library nobody can sue you over
Every built-in passage is out of copyright or belongs to the public: pre-1930 classics, famous old speeches, US government documents. Bring your own words for everything else.
The Gettysburg Address1863
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland1865
Moby-Dick1851
Pride and Prejudice1813
The US Constitution1787
A Tale of Two Cities1859
Declaration of Independence1776
Anything you pasteor photograph
Curated classics
The starter library is free. The full library, a much larger shelf drawn from Standard Ebooks and the National Archives, comes with Plus. Every passage is trimmed to the good part, with no licence boilerplate attached.
Paste anything
A group chat, a recipe, the terms and conditions you didn't read. Free players get a few pasted ParaLaffs a day; Plus removes the limit.
Photograph a page
Point the camera at a menu, a plaque or a paperback and the words are lifted off the page, on the phone. A Plus feature, and a dangerous one in museums.
The Pack Shop
Words come in packs. So do outfits.
Every pack is either a dictionary of replacement words or a visual theme that re-dresses the game. Nothing in the shop is required to laugh; all of it makes the laughing more specific.
Free
The free starter set
Comes with the app. Stays free.Plain Paper
Cream page, black type, yellow highlighter. The house style, and the one you're reading now.
IncludedStarter Library
A curated shelf of passages, Lincoln through Carroll, plus a few pasted texts of your own each day.
IncludedShare Card & Video
A styled card image and a karaoke video of your ParaLaff. Never paywalled, on principle.
IncludedSystem Voice
Your phone's own text-to-speech, with rate and pitch settings, reading every word with karaoke highlighting.
Included
Plus
The Plus collection
Everything on this shelf, for $24.99/year or $4.99/month. Or $59.99 once, forever.Space Opera
Shuttles, viceroys, nebula-pink. A vehicle blank gets a shuttle here, never a milk float.
In PlusGalactic Adventure
Rogue moons, cargo captains, a food category that is mostly rations and regret.
In PlusFantasy Quest
Goblets, wyverns, moss-green. Every job blank becomes an apprentice something.
In PlusSlang
Words your teacher would circle. Lincoln has never sounded so unbothered.
In PlusSpooky
Cauldrons, lurching, a holiday category with only one answer. Arrives in October.
In Plus · seasonalSleigh Bells
Tinsel, mulled, the drink category entirely eggnog. Arrives in December.
In Plus · seasonalLove Letters
Swooning, bouquets, blush-pink. The Declaration of Independence, but needy.
In Plus · seasonalBirthday Bash
Piñatas, frosted, the pet category unexpectedly full of ponies.
In PlusHalloween
Aubergine paper, orange highlighter, drifting bats and one creaky door.
Valentine's Day
Blush paper, rose highlighter, hearts that drift up and never quite arrive.
Christmas
Evergreen paper, gold highlighter, candy-cane rules and the gentlest sleigh bells.
Birthday
Confetti rules, blue-and-pink accents, a highlighter that behaves like frosting.
Camera Capture
Photograph any printed page and play it. Text is read on the phone, not in a cloud.
In PlusFont & Highlight Packs
Typewriter, chalkboard, ransom-note. New highlighter styles for the words you swapped.
In PlusPremium Voices
Neural voices that pause at the commas and mean it. More voices arrive over time.
Coming to PlusUnlimited Everything
The full library, unlimited pasted text, and not a single advertisement, ever.
In PlusA note on the packs: every first-party pack uses generic, original names and words. Players can also build their own custom dictionaries in the app; those belong to their makers and stay out of this shop.
See the three pricesSticker sheet
Thirteen kinds of blank
When the original word is a colour, a vehicle or a piece of furniture, the blank says so. Every pack answers in its own accent, and quietly falls back to the plain dictionary where it has nothing to say.
- A colourSpace Opera: nebula-pink
- A vehicleSpace Opera: shuttle
- A foodGalactic Adventure: ration bar
- A petFantasy Quest: pocket wyvern
- A piece of furnitureSpooky: coffin bench
- A body partSlang: noggin
- An article of clothingSleigh Bells: itchy jumper
- A holidayLove Letters: the fourteenth
- A celebritySlang: a reality-TV chef
- A drinkSleigh Bells: eggnog, obviously
- A placeFantasy Quest: the moss keep
- A jobGalactic Adventure: cargo captain
- An animalBirthday Bash: party pony
Visual themes
The game dresses for the occasion. So does this page.
A theme changes the palette, the type, the decorations and, most importantly, the highlighter your words wear. The app suggests one from the calendar; you can overrule it. Try that here, right now.
The calendar chose Plain Paper for today. Your choice is remembered on this device only.
- Calendar-aware. September teases Halloween; December rings in Sleigh Bells; the first fortnight of February goes soft.
- Ambient flourishes. Bats, snow, hearts and confetti drift in as light animations, off by default when your phone asks for less motion.
- Subtle sound. A creak, a jingle, a pop when a blank is filled. Never over the read-aloud, and silenced by one switch.
- Pairs with a pack. Halloween looks best with Spooky in the dice, but any theme goes with any dictionary. Fashion is not a rule.
ParaLaff Complete
Alice was beginning to get very damp of sitting by her accountant on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the lunchbox her sister was reading.
Finish ParaLaff
Highlighter, right now: yellow marker. Change the theme and watch the swapped words change clothes.
Four score and seven hamsters ago our fathers brought forth on this casserole, a new nation, conceived in marmalade, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created sparkly.
Read aloud
Hear it read with a straight face
Tap play and your phone reads the ParaLaff aloud in its own voice, lighting each word as it goes, karaoke-style. It does not know the words are wrong. That is the entire joke.
- System voices are free, with rate, pitch and voice settings under “Speech settings”.
- Word-by-word highlighting follows the voice, so you can read along and lose composure on schedule.
- Premium voices come with Plus, with more to follow.
Pricing
Three prices, no small print in a smaller font
The game is free. The wardrobe costs money. Any payment at all removes every advertisement, forever.
Free
The whole game, in its plain clothes.
$0
No card required.
- The full core loop on the starter library
- A few pasted-text ParaLaffs a day
- The Dictionary and the dice
- System voice with karaoke highlighting
- Share card and video export, always
Most packs
ParaLaff Plus
Every pack on the Plus shelf, and the ones to come.
$24.99/year
or $4.99 a month · 1-week free trial · annual saves 58%
- Camera capture of any printed page
- Unlimited pasted text and the full library
- All themed dictionaries and font packs
- All visual themes, seasonal drops included
- Premium voices and highlight styles
- Zero ads
Lifetime
Plus, forever, paid once.
$59.99 once
Everything in Plus for the life of the app. Future metered voice minutes excluded, honestly.
- Everything on the Plus shelf
- Every future pack and theme
- No renewal, no reminder, no ads
- Never retroactively paywalled
House rule: any payment removes every ad, forever. Free players see a few; paying players never see one again.
Every Friday
The newsletter
The ParaLaff of the Week
One finished ParaLaff, one public-domain passage, one pack that made it funny. Delivered on Fridays, about the length of this paragraph. No news. No nagging. Unsubscribe by replying “stop it.”
It was the best of piñatas, it was the worst of piñatas, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of frosting…
Questions
Asked frequently, answered briefly
Who is it for? What's the age rating?
ParaLaff is rated 13+. The built-in packs are family-presentable, and the first-party dictionaries use only generic, original words. There is nothing to filter because there is nothing to filter out.
Where does my text go?
Nowhere. Your text never leaves your phone. The part-of-speech tagging runs on-device with a small language model your phone downloads once. No passage, pasted or photographed, is sent to a server, and the app has no analytics watching what you write.
What's actually free?
The whole game: starter library, a few pasted texts a day, the Dictionary, the dice, system voices with karaoke highlighting, and share card and video export. The Plus shelf adds packs, themes, camera capture, premium voices and the full library. Any payment removes all ads forever.
Android?
After iPhone. ParaLaff launches on iPhone first; Android follows once the iPhone version has proven itself. Leave an address above and we'll say so when it happens.
Can I play with other people?
ParaLaff is a solo game you finish and then share. There is no feed and no group mode. Send your ParaLaff to your sister through the share sheet; she will do the rest.
Which passages are in the library, and why so old?
Pre-1930 books from Standard Ebooks and the public domain, US federal government documents, and famous speeches old enough to be everybody's. Old is the point: nobody owns them, so nobody minds. Anything newer, you paste in yourself.
Do seasonal packs disappear?
The shop fronts them by season, but once a pack is on the Plus shelf it stays there. Spooky in April is a lifestyle, and we support it.
What about custom dictionaries?
You can build your own in the app, for your family's in-jokes or your book club's grudges. They live on your account and are yours. The shop sells only first-party packs.
Be there when the shop opens
One email on launch day. Then nothing, until the ParaLaff of the Week, if you asked for it.
Coming soon to the App Store