Academics
DealTales
Narrative-Driven Bridge + Partnership Trick-Taking for Tweens — bidding-as-conversation between Whisp + Bram. Highest CASEL fit in the Distributed-Narrative cluster (partnership IS the curriculum). Whisp wisp-of-cloud mascot.
▶ 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. On-device AI personalizes the mentor's responses to your kid's progress — never connecting to a server, never collecting data.
Mentored by Whisp
#1F3856 Characters who teach
Meet the cast
Bram
Reading partners — inferring what cards your partner holds
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Auntie Audrey
Bidding wisdom — when to commit and when to pass
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Pointer Owl
High-card points; counting the strength of a hand before you bid, ace four, king three, queen two, jack one
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Marshal Crane
Drawing trumps + counting the cards played
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Blind Lark
The opening lead; the defender's blind first card that shapes the whole defense
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Echo Wren
Defensive signals; telling your partner what to do through the order of your cards
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Sly Finch
The finesse; winning a trick with a lower card by betting on position
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Doubleton Sisters
Short-suit play — managing two-card holdings
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Gift Badger
The end play / throw-in; giving an opponent a trick that costs them two
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Cinch the Boa
The squeeze; forcing an opponent to discard a guard
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The Vanderbilt
Bridge legend — classical convention and table presence
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Browse all chapters → · What's distributed-narrative methodology? →
What's inside
Learning goal
Narrative-Driven Bridge + Partnership Trick-Taking for Tweens — bidding-as-conversation between Whisp + Bram. Highest CASEL fit in the Distributed-Narrative cluster (partnership IS the curriculum). Whisp wisp-of-cloud mascot.
Question kits
16 curriculum-aligned question kits, 400 questions in all, mapped to recognized standards.
On-device AI mentor
FoundationModels-powered hints, feedback, and adaptive difficulty — all running locally.
Mentored by Whisp — on-device AI, no data leaves the device.
How DealTales 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 DealTales teaches in 2 short courses.
DealTales 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
DealTales 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
