Ever want to easily create a digital scene with some of your favorite cartoon characters? There’s now a new iPad app called Toon Hero that will let users create their own story lines with a variety of characters and share them with friends. Users can basically make those characters talk and interact with each other, and share the results of their creations with friends.
The app was created by a startup based in New Zealand called Trigger Happy, which has done the work of building the interaction engine and licensing different characters and properties from a variety of content owners. Those include characters from The Jim Henson Company, Hero: 108, and Mukpuddy. The app also has backgrounds available from National Geographic.
Users can choose characters and then have them interact with certain gestures, record audio for those characters and then watch the finished interaction before deciding whether or not they want to save it. Once you’re happy with the finished product, you can share with friends, tweet or post your creations to Facebook.
Users can animate without having any real creative skills, just by dragging and dropping, tapping, swiping, and the like to unlock different movements and gestures. But all the movements and gestures that the characters can do are pre-programmed to be kid-friendly and brand-safe.
That means that for content creators, the app is a way to let users engage with characters that they have an affinity for in a safe environment. It’s one reason why brands and creators are working with Trigger Happy on the app. The app can be downloaded for free, and it will offer a series of free and paid characters and backgrounds which can be downloaded or purchased.
Toon Hero is available in 14 languages around the world. Trigger Happy was founded in 2010, and is headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand. The company now has 20 employees, after massive growth over the last several months around the launch.