Special Interest
ScanForge
Snap or paste a chess board — from a screenshot, a book, or a diagram — and ScanForge reads it into a position you can study and keep. Check what it read (whose move, right way up, every piece), then play it out and save it to your scans. On-device; the picture never leaves this device; no account. Ages 9–14.
▶ 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.
Mentored by Scanner
#2f6690 Characters who teach
Meet the cast
ScanForge's scan crew (ages 9–14) each embody one rule of turning a picture of a chess board into a position you can study — the crew IS the method: capture the board, read it square by square, CHECK what the machine read before you trust it, study it, and keep it. Mentor Scanner keeps the desk: a scan is a starting point, not the last word — always check the read (a machine can misread a blurry piece), and the picture stays on your own device.
Snap
Capture the board from the world — a photo, a screenshot, or a diagram from a book
Reader
Read the pieces square by square, matching each to the piece it knows (the recognizer)
Checker
Confirm what was read — whose move, is it the right way up, is every piece right (verification is a lesson)
Keeper
Save the confirmed position to your own scans, to study again later
Scanner
a scan is a starting point, not the last word; always check the read, and the picture never leaves your device
What's inside
Learning goal
Snap or paste a chess board — from a screenshot, a book, or a diagram — and ScanForge reads it into a position you can study and keep. Check what it read (whose move, right way up, every piece), then play it out and save it to your scans. On-device; the picture never leaves this device; no account. Ages 9–14.
Mentored by Scanner — no data leaves the device.
How ScanForge 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