Cash Quest

Think it. Bank it. Build it.

Inspiration

Our inspiration for CashQuest came from the growing need to make financial literacy engaging, accessible, and personal. Many adults and young adults struggle with managing money because traditional financial resources make the process of learning feel dull or overwhelming. We wanted to change that by turning finances into an interactive game where users can learn through doing, not just reading. Inspired by how mobile games reward progress and how AI can customize learning experiences, we designed CashQuest to adapt to each user’s goals, stages of life, and financial understanding. Whether someone is learning to budget for the first time or exploring loans and credit, CashQuest helps them level up their financial knowledge in a fun, bite-sized, and meaningful way.

What it does

CashQuest is a gamified financial literacy website that personalizes financial education for every user. After a short quiz about your life stage, financial confidence, and skills, the app customizes your journey through interactive topics like Budgeting, Credit, Investing, and Taxes. Users complete challenges, earn XP, unlock badges, and track their Financial IQ growth through a dynamic dashboard. The What-If Wallet simulation lets players see how real-world financial decisions like saving, spending, or investing impacts their balance over time.

How we built it

We built CashQuest using React Native with Expo for fast cross-platform development. The backend runs on Firebase, Node.js and Express.js, which stores user profiles, progress, and personalized financial paths. Our team designed a rule-based personalization system that customizes challenges and learning paths based on the introductory quiz results. We also integrated interactive simulation logic for the What-If Wallet and created a progress dashboard that visualizes Financial IQ growth.

Challenges we ran into

Some challenges we ran into were building a realistic financial simulation that felt educational but still fun and designing personalized learning paths for both students and adults by balancing simplicity with accuracy. To overcome these challenges, we broke the project into focused modules and worked collaboratively to integrate them. For the financial simulation, we simplified real-world scenarios into clear, visual “What-If Wallet” interactions. To handle personalization, we built an introductory quiz that feeds user data into an adaptive logic model, letting the AI generate unique learning paths for students or adults.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Some accomplishments that we're proud of are successfully built a fully functional prototype in under 24 hours and designing a scalable game system that can grow with users as they learn.

What we learned

We learned that financial literacy can be fun if presented interactively. Our team gained hands-on experience in user personalization, game logic, and financial simulation design. We also learned how to prioritize features effectively under time pressure, focusing on building a strong, playable game instead of overloading it.

What's next for Cash Quest

Next, we plan to expand content to include more real-world financial scenarios and add AI-driven personalization to adapt challenges dynamically based on user performance. We would also want to integrate a chatbot for on-demand financial guidance and support.