Academics
HeartPals
Meet the tricky little words, for ages 6–8. Most tricky words — said, to, he — have one part that makes a surprise sound (a few have two); the rest you can sound out. HeartPals shows the word, lets you hear it, and asks you to mark the surprise part — then gives the friendly reason why. No memorising whole shapes, no score. On-device, no accounts.
▶ Play it nowBuilt for sittings of about 15 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.
#b23a5f Characters who teach
Meet the cast
HeartPals's three friends meet the tricky little words: most letters behave, and one part (sometimes two) makes a surprise sound.
Heartly
keeps the surprise part of a tricky word by heart
Plod
(A tortoise) - sounds out the letters that behave, slowly, one by one
Peekaboo
(A frog) - hides in the part of the word that makes a surprise sound
What's inside
Learning goal
Meet the tricky little words, for ages 6–8. Most tricky words — said, to, he — have one part that makes a surprise sound (a few have two); the rest you can sound out. HeartPals shows the word, lets you hear it, and asks you to mark the surprise part — then gives the friendly reason why. No memorising whole shapes, no score. On-device, no accounts.
How HeartPals 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