# Marcus Delaney, 8th Grade History Teacher + Department Head at Garfield Middle School (Westerville, OH) — read of Alternate Timelines, June 13 2026

> 14 years in the classroom, department head for 3, currently drowning in Google Classroom, Kahoot, and iCivics. I coach JV soccer on weekends and drive 35 minutes each way to school listening to Hardcore History.

## How I got here

Someone in the Ohio Social Studies Teachers Facebook group posted "has anyone tried this AI history game?" with a link and a shrug emoji. No endorsement, no warning. Just the link. I clicked it during my lunch break, which means I had about 9 minutes before I had to get back.

## What I clicked first

The headline pulled me in: "Explore infinite history. Every decision reshapes the world." Fine, whatever, I've heard that pitch from every edu-game since 2011. But then the subhead "Claude-powered branching narratives where your choices ripple across centuries" actually made me slow down. Claude is a specific thing. That's a real technical claim, not just "AI-powered." I know what Claude is. I use it. That specificity made me keep reading instead of closing the tab.

## Where I paused

"From the Creator of 4 Paying Users."

I stopped cold. I read it twice. That is one of the stranger things I've seen on a product page. Four users. They put that in the hero section. Part of me respects the honesty. Part of me doesn't understand what I'm supposed to do with that information. It reads like someone doing a bit, but I couldn't tell if it was self-aware confidence or a red flag dressed up as transparency.

Then I scrolled down and saw this: "Honest disclosure: we don't have live customers on this idea yet."

Wait. The top of the page says 4 paying users. The bottom says no live customers. I re-read both. They're both on the same page. That is not a minor inconsistency. That is a direct contradiction, and it sat in my stomach the wrong way.

## What I distrusted

The bottom third of the page broke the whole frame for me. Suddenly there's a scoring system: "66/100 Adoptability." "Year-1 take-home (Fermi)." "1 in 6 Meaningful-success odds." "Unlock the dossier $5." "Adopt the build $99."

This isn't a product page for a game. This is a page selling the idea of building a game. The "Play Now" buttons might go somewhere real, I didn't click them, but the whole bottom section is pitched at someone who wants to build and run this business, not someone who wants to play it or use it in a classroom.

So which is it? Is Alternate Timelines a product I can use with my students on Monday, or is it a business concept I can license and build out myself? The page is trying to do both at once and it collapses under the weight. I genuinely don't know what the actual product state is.

Also: "Educators use Alternate Timelines to teach cause-and-effect, systems thinking, and critical analysis." That's written in present tense, active, as if it's happening right now. But paired with "no live customers on this idea yet," that sentence is just fiction.

## What would convince me

I want to see one specific classroom session documented. Not a testimonial, not a case study with a headshot and a quote. I want: grade level, topic (like "The Battle of Hastings"), what scenario they ran, what choices students made, and what the AI generated in response. Show me the actual output. Let me judge whether it's historically plausible or embarrassingly wrong, because that's what I'll be doing when a student tries to break it on day one.

If the product is actually playable right now, link me directly to a demo scenario I can run without signing up. Let me experience 2 minutes of it. If the writing holds up and Claude doesn't hallucinate William the Conqueror as a Habsburg, I'd be more interested than I am now.

## What I'd ask in an email reply

1. The page says 4 paying users and also says no live customers. Can you explain what I'm actually looking at -- a product I can use with students today, or an early build being pitched to potential operators?
2. When a student makes a historically implausible choice (say, giving gunpowder to the Romans in 100 BC), what does Claude actually output? Does it play along, push back, or does it go off the rails?
3. The Scholar tier at $29.99/mo mentions "classroom licenses, 30 students" -- is that per classroom or per school, and what happens to student data under FERPA? That's not optional information for me, it's a blocker.

## Verdict: on-the-fence

The concept is legitimately interesting to me and "Claude-powered" is a real differentiator. But the page is confused about what it's selling and to whom, and the contradiction between "4 paying users" and "no live customers" made me trust the whole thing about 30% less than when I landed.

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*Memo by skeptic persona, generated 2026-06-13. Studio breaks own self-grading loop.*