Program 02 · In open beta
Lanternville.
Your kid runs a small-town information stand. Townspeople bring questions; the only way to answer them well is to look things up at a magic newsstand. A cozy shop-sim that teaches kids ages 9 to 11 the single most useful media-literacy habit: lateral reading.
It's a beta, not a polished release. The game runs through fifteen shifts. Some voiceover lines are still being re-recorded, and a few visual details will tighten over the next few weeks. If something feels off, the feedback form is open.
I The mechanics
A shop-sim where the “ingredients” are sources.
Kids in 4th and 5th grade already know this genre cold (Papa's Pizzeria, Cooking Mama, Good Pizza Great Pizza, Diner Dash). The mechanics feel familiar from minute one. That means the whole cognitive budget goes into the actual learning, not the controls.
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i.
The opening setupThe Wonder Counter
You just moved to the small mountain town of Lanternville to live with your retired-librarian grandparent. On the first morning, Grandma hands over the keys to the Wonder Counter, the town's information stand. Townspeople walk up with curious questions, and your job is to find them a good answer.
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ii.
Source typingThe Magic Newsstand
Search through cards from experts, firsthand witnesses, cited articles, gossipy hearsay, anonymous notes, and sponsored ads. Inspect each one with a magnifier. Stamp the ones that are trustworthy. Reliability is in the content, not the looks.
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iii.
Lateral readingThe Match Scale
Place two cards on a brass scale. If they confirm each other, stamp the answer "Confirmed" and serve it. This is lateral reading, the single highest-leverage habit in media literacy, wired directly into the game's verbs. Kids do it forty times before they finish the campaign.
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iv.
Long-arc payoffThe Town Map
Each customer has a Curiosity Lantern outside their home. A confirmed answer lights it up. Shift by shift, the town map gets brighter.
II What kids learn
The mechanic is the lesson.
The skill being taught, lateral reading, is the literal verb of the game. We don't talk about source evaluation. We just have you practice it forty times.
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i.
Highest-leverage habitLateral reading
Cross-check a card against a second card before you stamp it. Confirmed-by-two is the entire game loop. Stanford's Civic Online Reasoning research calls this the single highest-leverage habit in media literacy.
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ii.
Seven-stamp setSource typing
Expert. Firsthand. Cited. Anonymous. Opinion. Ad. Secondhand. Seven stamps. Kids learn a vocabulary they can actually use on real online content later.