Academics
BesideTots
Two children, two towers, side by side. Build your own tower while your friend builds theirs — on one screen together, or on two devices at one table. When your towers match, the grown-up card notices. No winner, no score, a tumble is just funny. Ages 3–5.
Built for sittings of about 10 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, praises, and patiently scaffolds learning. On-device AI personalizes the mentor's responses to your kid's progress — never connecting to a server, never collecting data.
Mentored by Dusky
#B45309 Distributed-narrative cast
Meet the cast
Two children build side by side. Dusky the lamp keeps the table calm and dims it when time is up; Tottle is the block who tumbles (and that is funny, never a failure); Twinny notices the moment two towers are the same height.
Dusky
(Mentor, a small lamp) - opens the table and dims it gently when the door closes
Tottle
A wobbly block - shows that a tumble is part of building, never a loss
Twinny
A mirror-bright block - notices when two towers match
What's inside
Learning goal
Two children, two towers, side by side. Build your own tower while your friend builds theirs — on one screen together, or on two devices at one table. When your towers match, the grown-up card notices. No winner, no score, a tumble is just funny. Ages 3–5.
Question kits
16 curriculum-aligned kits × 25 questions = 400 questions per app, mapped to recognized standards.
On-device AI mentor
FoundationModels-powered hints, feedback, and adaptive difficulty — all running locally.
Mentored by Dusky — on-device AI, no data leaves the device.
How BesideTots handles your kid's data
- ✅ All progress, settings, and AI-generated content stays on the device
- ✅ No analytics, no tracking, no third-party SDKs
- ✅ No ads, no in-app purchases — you pay once
- ✅ No personal information collected from children — in line with COPPA (updated by the 2026 FTC amendments)
- ✅ Parental controls + session limits + content filters built in
BesideTots 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
BesideTots 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