Academics
PacePals
Walk your town at child height. Pick a neighbour and a place, and count the footsteps out loud as they walk the shortest way. A bench waits every ten steps. Then move the bakery, add a footbridge or paint a crossing, and walk it again. No score, no timer; your street is kept on this device.
Built for sittings of about 15 minutes on the screen. That is our design budget, not a measurement.
#2f6b3a Distributed-narrative cast
Meet the cast
PacePals's friends each embody one rule of a walk — the crew IS the measuring. Pacey counts every footstep, Benchley sits down every ten, Beeline always takes the shortest way, and Leafy notices what makes a walk pleasant.
Pacey
(Hero and guide, a young fox) - counts every footstep out loud; one step is one unit, and every walk is measured in it
Benchley
A tortoise who rests on a bench every ten steps - so a long walk is counted in tens
Beeline
A bee who always flies the shortest way - and asks whether a footbridge or a crossing would make the walk shorter
Leafy
A hedgehog who walks under trees - she smiles at shade, quiet and things to look at, because a short walk is not always a pleasant one
What's inside
Learning goal
Walk your town at child height. Pick a neighbour and a place, and count the footsteps out loud as they walk the shortest way. A bench waits every ten steps. Then move the bakery, add a footbridge or paint a crossing, and walk it again. No score, no timer; your street is kept on this device.
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 Pacey — on-device AI, no data leaves the device.
How PacePals 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
- ✅ No personal information collected from children — in line with COPPA (updated by the 2026 FTC amendments)
- ✅ Parental controls + session limits + content filters built in
PacePals 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
PacePals 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