Academics
CommonsForge
Design the rules of a shared-resource community — then watch them work or break. For teens: give a village hidden appetites, set a quota, enforcement, penalties and a stewardship reward, run a season, and see the commons sustain or collapse (and a proxy metric beat the real goal). Computed on-device; nothing leaves your device.
▶ Play it nowBuilt for sittings of about 25 minutes on the screen. That is our design budget, not a measurement.
#059669 Characters who teach
Meet the cast
CommonsForge is an older-teen app, so its cast are realistic text case personas (no illustrations). They ask the designer's questions before you trust a rule.
Ada
The community-rules designer — rules are not wishes, they are incentives: given how people actually behave, what does this rule make them do?
Boaz
The moderation-appeals reviewer — every metric can be gamed and every sanction can be unjust; what are we really protecting, and who does this rule cost?
Oriel
The monitor — people keep a rule when they are sure it will be noticed; a checked log beats a harsh fine that is never applied
Casimir
The refill — a sustainable quota is what the resource regrows each day; take more and the level falls until it is gone
What's inside
Learning goal
Design the rules of a shared-resource community — then watch them work or break. For teens: give a village hidden appetites, set a quota, enforcement, penalties and a stewardship reward, run a season, and see the commons sustain or collapse (and a proxy metric beat the real goal). Computed on-device; nothing leaves your device.
Mentored by Ada — no data leaves the device.
How CommonsForge 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
CommonsForge 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
CommonsForge 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