Academics
CentralForge
You are the central bank. Set one lever — the policy rate — and steer inflation and jobs, but everything you do arrives with a lag. Hike to cool prices and inflation barely moves for a year; hold too long and you over-tighten into a recession; face a supply shock and there is no clean move at all. Predict the economy, then run it yourself. All exact, all on your device. Ages 15–18.
▶ Play it nowBuilt for sittings of about 25 minutes on the screen. That is our design budget, not a measurement.
#2f7d84 Characters who teach
Meet the cast
CentralForge is for ages 15–18 — no illustrated cast; the 'characters' are the pieces of a macro model. You set one lever, the policy rate. Above the neutral rate it cools the economy: spending slows, unemployment rises, and — a year or two later — inflation eases. That delay is the transmission lag, and it is why the job is hard: a hike barely moves inflation at first, so waiting for it to visibly fall over-tightens into a recession. A supply shock raises inflation and unemployment at once (stagflation), leaving the one lever to trade one problem for the other. Every value is exact arithmetic computed on-device.
The policy rate
Your one lever — above the neutral rate it cools the economy and raises unemployment, below it heats the economy
The lag
The delay before a rate change reaches inflation; unemployment moves this year, inflation only responds a year or two later
The Phillips curve
Slack — unemployment above its natural rate — pulls inflation down; a tight labour market pushes it up
The supply shock
Raises inflation and unemployment together (stagflation), so the rate can only trade one problem for the other
The Taylor rule
A rule of thumb: lean the rate above neutral in proportion to how far inflation runs above target
What's inside
Learning goal
You are the central bank. Set one lever — the policy rate — and steer inflation and jobs, but everything you do arrives with a lag. Hike to cool prices and inflation barely moves for a year; hold too long and you over-tighten into a recession; face a supply shock and there is no clean move at all. Predict the economy, then run it yourself. All exact, all on your device. Ages 15–18.
How CentralForge 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