Academics
DropTale
Full-depth Shogi (Japanese chess) for tweens — play the real 9×9 board against a graded computer or a friend, promote in the last three ranks, and master shogi's soul: the DROP, where a captured piece switches sides and re-enters the game from your hand.
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 Sensei Tsume
#3a5fa8 Distributed-narrative cast
Meet the cast
Boomerang Fu
The pawn (Fu): steps one square forward; captured, it comes back as a drop
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Lance Kyo
The lance: charges straight forward any distance, never retreats
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Leaping Kei
The knight (Keima): the only jumper — two fixed forward hops over any piece
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Silverstep Gin
The silver general: steps forward plus all four diagonals (the attacker's five)
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Goldguard Kin
The gold general: the six-direction shield step (cannot promote)
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Bishop Kaku
The bishop: the long diagonal slide, locked to one colour
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Rook Hisha
The rook: the long file and rank sweep — the strongest slider
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Crownfall Gyoku
The king: one step any direction; protecting it is the game — checkmate is its fall
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Promote Nari
The promotion zone: a piece flips to its stronger promoted side in the last three ranks
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Dropcatch Dai
The DROP rule: a captured piece enters your hand and redeploys on an empty square
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Reserve Rin
Piece-in-hand + drop limits: the komadai reserve, nifu and uchifuzume
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Sensei Tsume
The tsume-shogi puzzle master (mentor): forced-mate problems with one solution
Read chapter →
Browse all chapters → · What's distributed-narrative methodology? →
What's inside
Learning goal
Full-depth Shogi (Japanese chess) for tweens — play the real 9×9 board against a graded computer or a friend, promote in the last three ranks, and master shogi's soul: the DROP, where a captured piece switches sides and re-enters the game from your hand.
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 Sensei Tsume — on-device AI, no data leaves the device.
How DropTale 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
- ✅ COPPA compliant under the 2026 FTC amendments
- ✅ Parental controls + session limits + content filters built in
DropTale 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
DropTale 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
