The Gag Machine 1.01R

Too exhausted to talk much about this tonight but I'm (hopefully) finished preparing the new website and software project. From now on, it's dealing with anything that crops up and, in the coming weeks, improving it as I hopefully get feedback from users.

What is 'The Gag Machine'? It's the Windows-based development/improvement of the app I wrote for Android last year. I never shared it with the world but I've found enormously helpful. I wrote it to help with my cartooning and it genuinely helps me come up with new gag ideas. However, I've now made it flexible enough that anybody can import sets of data (it reads simple .txt files, one item per line) which it then randomly displays. You can control which fields change as well as the ordering and a whole bunch of other things. You can export files containing many thousands of variations... I'm really not doing a great job of marketing this but I'm absolutely exhausted. I'm asking what I hope is a fair price, especially for the packs which contain the data I use myself and which are the key ingredient. If you're a cartoonist/creative and you can't afford it, then I'm also willing to give it away for free if you genuinely can't afford it. How do people convince me that they can't afford it? I haven't yet decided. I guess it's not my job to do the persuading.

So, please, if you're interested in, head over there and downloads the trial. And please be gentle if there are any small problems I've not yet spotted. Even thought it's a simple project, working on my own means that this has been both a labour of love but sometimes a bit overwhelming. One other point: It does require the .NET 4.5 framework, so depending on which version of Windows you're running, there might be an additional download from Microsoft.

I guess this is what's called a 'soft launch' if, by 'soft launch', we mean I'm now going to hide in a dark corner for about a week...

Before I do that: here's a video I did about two weeks ago when I previously thought I was finished. The performance/looks/functionality of the software has improved but (as you can see) I put too much effort into drawing the cartoon ideas that emerged from this session not to use this video.