Academics
SpanForge
A word game on a connection board. Trace a real word across the tiles to claim the path, then join your two sides to win - Boggle meets Hex. Stilt the stilt leads a marsh of wading birds, each one a different move; Skimmer coaches when a word won't come. For 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.
#6B9B7A Characters who teach
Meet the cast
SpanForge is a marsh of wading birds who turn a word game into a connection board: trace a real word across neighbouring tiles to claim the path, then join your two sides. Stilt the black-necked stilt leads; Skimmer the black skimmer coaches, and every bird embodies one move of the game.
Stilt
Trace-to-connect - a black-necked stilt who steps only where the words are; tracing a real word to claim a path IS the whole game
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Bittern
The two-bridge - a bittern who holds two stones that share two empty neighbours; keeping a two-bridge IS keeping your connection safe
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Wader
The Meaning gate - an avocet who glosses a word before it counts; a word is playable only after its meaning is shown
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Snipe
Block-the-shortest-path - a snipe who zig-zags to cut the opponent's shortest connection
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Plover
Claim-by-adjacency - a plover who extends only from cells already touching her territory
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Curlew
Bridge-letters - a curlew who reaches across a gap with a shared letter
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Godwit
The digraph tile - a godwit who reads NG, CH, or TH as one step: two letters, one tile
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Reeve
Longest-word reconcile - a reeve who settles a tie: when two traces conflict, the longest real word wins the cell
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Dunlin
Resource-degeneration - a dunlin who, when the good words run dry, plays plain Hex; the lesson that the board is a resource
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Skimmer
Anti-shame host / tier handicap - a black skimmer who frames not-knowing-a-word and runs the gloss-for-younger handicap
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Browse all chapters → · What's distributed-narrative methodology? →
What's inside
Learning goal
A word game on a connection board. Trace a real word across the tiles to claim the path, then join your two sides to win - Boggle meets Hex. Stilt the stilt leads a marsh of wading birds, each one a different move; Skimmer coaches when a word won't come. For ages 9-14.
How SpanForge 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
SpanForge 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
SpanForge 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