Academics
CivicForge
Players are newly elected to their town's Youth Council, making real decisions about budgets, zoning, public services, and community issues. Every vote has consequences — build parks or fix potholes, fund the library or hire firefighters. Where iCivics teaches federal government through web-based quizzes, CivicForge teaches local government through iPhone-native simulation.
Meet your mentor
Every Spark & Anvil app has a friendly mentor character that demonstrates, praises, 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.
#4A6FA5 CivicForge puts you on the Youth Council of Millbrook, a small town that needs your help! The old council made a mess of things, and now you need to fix roads, fund the library, hire firefighters, and keep everyone happy -- all with a limited budget. Every vote you make has real consequences for the
Distributed-narrative cast
Meet the cast
CivicForge's 6-character virtue-archetype cast embodies six civic virtues — justice, liberty, equity, civility, participation, stewardship — via gender/culture-neutral animal personas (NO real political figures or political-tradition mascotizing). UNIQUE TO CIVICFORGE: the cast DELIBERATELY FADES across kits — Strong Presence (kits 1-6) → Reduced Recurrence as silent visual cameos (kits 7-11) → Guest Cameo Only at kit celebrations (kits 12-16). The methodology only does its job if the learner takes over the civic-reasoning role by mid-progression; a non-fading cast would compete with the Paul-Elder Socratic mentor's role. Critical design: NO character is named for its virtue (no 'Justice', no 'Liberty') — names are coined / archaic / Latin-root tokens so learners can encode the virtue on its own terms. Per `civicforge-app/Docs/HANDOFF_FROM_LABSMITH_DISTRIBUTED_NARRATIVE_RETROFIT.md` (Wave 3, shipped 2026-05-21 — site backfill 2026-05-22 Wave 32a). Pre-mascot-generation playtest required with learners from differing political-family backgrounds. NOTE: code-side mentor is 'Liberty'; site mentor 'Mayor Reed' is a separate flagged reconciliation item (not part of this backfill).
Verdis
Justice — the patient listener who weighs sides; bear with wooden scale + spectacles
Aera
Liberty (open-window) — keeper of open windows; snowy owl on shuttered window frame
Span
Equity — the bridge-builder; heron with mismatched planks for mismatched riverbanks
Cordis
Civility — disagreement-without-disrespect host; striped badger with mismatched cups + bow tie
Kindle
Participation — the door-opener; prairie dog at a half-open door pointing outward
Tellus
Stewardship — the long-view caretaker; ancient tortoise planting trees they will never sit under
What's inside
Budget Decisions
Millbrook has limited money and lots of needs. Should you fix the potholes or build a new park? Fund the library or hire more police? You decide where the money
Community Petitions
Residents send petitions asking for help. Read their concerns, investigate the issues, and decide how to respond. Not everyone agrees on what the town needs mos
Public Hearings
Hold hearings where AI-powered citizens speak for and against proposals. Listen to all sides, ask questions, and then vote. The best leaders listen before decid
Town Map
Visit different parts of Millbrook to see how your decisions affect real people. The town changes based on your votes -- new buildings appear, broken things get
Mentored by Mayor Reed — on-device AI, no data leaves the device.
How CivicForge 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
- ✅ COPPA compliant under the 2026 FTC amendments
- ✅ Parental controls + session limits + content filters built in
CivicForge 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
CivicForge 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