Special Interest
LevelForge
Players learn game design by designing, building, playtesting, and sharing their own playable games
▶ 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 Pixel
#FFA726 Welcome to LevelForge! You are now a game designer.
Characters who teach
Meet the cast
LevelForge's characters each teach one part of making a game level. Carve shapes where the player's eye goes first, Coax invites players forward instead of trapping them, Bounce adds the small reactions that make a game feel alive, Probe watches what playtesters actually do, and Ramp builds difficulty step by step. Verve, Crux, Ajar, Earn, and Rebound cover the fun loop, real choices, many ways in, honest rewards, and kind losing. Pixel is the mentor who guides each idea.
Carve
Level architecture — where-does-the-eye-go-first spatial-flow + sight-line + landmark craft
Read chapter →
Coax
Player psychology — invite-don't-trap; warm-host posture; player chooses forward
Read chapter →
Bounce
Juice + feedback — tiny-celebrations; squash-stretch-shake-thunk; juice as empathy
Read chapter →
Probe
Playtesting + iteration — what-they-DID-not-SAID listening-discipline; playtester-over-designer-taste
Read chapter →
Ramp
Difficulty curves — teach-test-vary-rest; deliberate-difficulty-as-love-letter; never-spike never-punish
Read chapter →
Verve
The core loop / the fun verb
Read chapter →
Crux
Meaningful choice / interesting decisions
Read chapter →
Ajar
Accessibility / options / many ways in
Read chapter →
Earn
Honest reward / progression without manipulation
Read chapter →
Rebound
Kind failure / forgiving losing
Read chapter →
Browse all chapters → · What's distributed-narrative methodology? →
What's inside
The Arcade HQ
This is your home base. Here's what you'll find:
Picking a Game Type
You can make three types of games:
The Level Editor
This is where you build your game!
The Grid
Your level is a big grid of squares. Each square is one tile. You place game pieces on the tiles.
Mentored by Pixel — on-device AI, no data leaves the device.
How LevelForge 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
LevelForge 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
LevelForge 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
