Academics
DebateForge
Competitive Speech & Debate Arena for ages 10-14 — master argumentation by researching evidence, building cases, delivering speeches, and competing in AI-judged debate tournaments where steelmanning, civil disagreement, and concession craft determine the strongest debater. Aligned to CCSS Speaking & Listening standards.
▶ 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 Rhetor
#4A6FA5 DebateForge is a competitive debate arena where you research evidence, build cases, deliver speeches, and compete in AI-judged tournaments. Learn to steelman opposing views, identify fallacies, deliver effective rebuttals, and change your mind in light of better evidence — debate craft as civil-discourse skill, not argument-as-weapon.
Characters who teach
Meet the cast
Each character in DebateForge is one debate skill: building a case, weighing evidence, stating the other side at its strongest, disagreeing without insult, and changing your mind when the evidence says so, plus signposting, defining terms, weighing impact, burden of proof and the good question. Rhetor, the mentor, frames each one.
Build
Case-construction — claim + warrant + evidence as architecture; what does your case REQUIRE to stand?
Read chapter →
Weigh
Evidence-evaluation — sources have positions, evidence has limits; credibility-as-calibration (shared design language with TruthQuest Weigh — cross-app continuity)
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Steel
Steelmanning the opposing view — strongest version of what they would say IF you let them; visibly holds up opposing-view-card with two hands
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Reply
Civil-rebuttal-not-rebuke — 'I disagree because' not 'you're wrong because'; address the ARGUMENT not the PERSON
Read chapter →
Yield
Changing-your-mind-in-light-of-evidence-as-strength — concession is craft + intellectual courage; visibly carries 'updated' badge (shared design language with TruthQuest Update — cross-app continuity)
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Crib
Signposting — say the shape of your argument out loud so a listener can follow: first, second, therefore
Read chapter →
Nail
Defining terms — pin down the key word before you argue, or you argue past each other
Read chapter →
Nub
Impact — when both sides have true points, weigh which one actually decides it
Read chapter →
Owe
Burden of proof — whoever makes the claim owes the reason; 'prove it isn't' is not an argument
Read chapter →
Prod
Cross-examination — the one good question that finds the gap in a case
Read chapter →
Browse all chapters → · What's distributed-narrative methodology? →
What's inside
Learning goal
Competitive Speech & Debate Arena for ages 10-14 — master argumentation by researching evidence, building cases, delivering speeches, and competing in AI-judged debate tournaments where steelmanning, civil disagreement, and concession craft determine the strongest debater. Aligned to CCSS Speaking & Listening standards.
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 Rhetor — on-device AI, no data leaves the device.
How DebateForge 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
The grown-up side of DebateForge on Spark & Whetstone, our free site for grown-ups: Steelman. They argue both sides; you say the other side back until its owner nods.
It also tells what DebateForge teaches in 2 short courses.
DebateForge 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
DebateForge 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
