Academics
AtlasTales
An atlas of world board games for ages 9–14: play three living classics from three continents — Alquerque, Brandubh (a Celtic siege game) and Oware (a West-African sowing game) — against a level-pickable study bot or a friend, then learn where and when each one comes from. One engine, many boards; on-device, nothing leaves your device.
▶ Play it nowBuilt for sittings of about 20 minutes on the screen. That is our design budget, not a measurement.
Meet your mentor
Every Spark & Anvil app has a friendly mentor character that demonstrates, asks, and patiently scaffolds learning.
Mentored by Mapp
#0E7490 Characters who teach
Meet the cast
AtlasTales's cast each embody one board-game move; the mapmaker Mapp unrolls each board and asks “where in the world is this from — and how do you win?”
Mapp
the mapmaker — unrolls each world board and asks where it comes from and how you win
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Hopper
The jump — leap the neighbour next to you and land on the empty point just beyond (Alquerque)
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Runa
The King's run — slip along the open lines to a free corner before the trap closes (Brandubh)
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Siege
The surround — box the King in on all four sides at once to win the siege (Brandubh)
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Sowa
The sower — scoop a pit and scatter its seeds one at a time around the board (Oware)
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Harva
The harvest — land your last seed to make two or three, then gather them into your store (Oware)
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Browse all chapters → · What's distributed-narrative methodology? →
What's inside
Learning goal
An atlas of world board games for ages 9–14: play three living classics from three continents — Alquerque, Brandubh (a Celtic siege game) and Oware (a West-African sowing game) — against a level-pickable study bot or a friend, then learn where and when each one comes from. One engine, many boards; on-device, nothing leaves your device.
Mentored by Mapp — no data leaves the device.
How AtlasTales handles your kid's data
- ✅ All progress, settings, and AI-generated content stays on the device
- ✅ No analytics, no tracking, no third-party SDKs
- ✅ Free — no ads, no in-app purchases
- ✅ No personal information collected from children — in line with COPPA (updated by the 2026 FTC amendments)
- ✅ No chat with strangers — play-together rooms use a short code and preset emotes, never typed messages
For you, the grown-up
Spark & Whetstone, our free site for grown-ups, tells what AtlasTales teaches in a short course of its own.
AtlasTales runs on ForgeKit — the open-source Swift Package Manager framework that powers every Spark & Anvil app. ForgeKit ensures consistent accessibility, COPPA compliance, and design language across the portfolio, so your kid's progress and preferences feel coherent across every app they touch.
Coming to the App Store
AtlasTales is in active development. Email us to hear when it ships — no marketing, no spam, just a one-shot launch announcement.
Email me at launch