Academics
CannonTales
Narrative-Driven Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) for Tweens — piece-asymmetry-as-character-richness (Pào the cannon, Elephant Wei the river-bound defender). General Mei 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 General Mei
#5BA08C Characters who teach
Meet the cast
Pào
The cannon: waits for one piece in the way, then leaps it to strike the piece behind
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Elephant Wei
The elephant — two points on a diagonal, never across the river, and stopped when the point between is blocked
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Knight Lu
Knight-jump tactical maneuver
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Soldier Jin
Forward-advancing infantry — pawn structure
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Advisor Shi
The advisor — palace-bound diagonal guard who never leaves the General
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Chariot Che
The chariot — straight-line power that sweeps the whole open file
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Marshal Shuai
The General piece — the calm center the whole game protects
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Palace Gong
The palace — the fortress home that shelters the General and advisors
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River Chu
The central river — the boundary that divides the board and transforms soldiers who cross it
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Sightline
The flying-General rule — the watcher of the invisible line between the two Generals
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Browse all chapters → · What's distributed-narrative methodology? →
What's inside
Learning goal
Narrative-Driven Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) for Tweens — piece-asymmetry-as-character-richness (Pào the cannon, Elephant Wei the river-bound defender). General Mei 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 General Mei — on-device AI, no data leaves the device.
How CannonTales 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
CannonTales 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
CannonTales 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
