Make Cents

Learning about budgeting shouldn't have to be hard. We want to help you make it **make cents** (sense)!

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This demo for this project will be given in-person.

Inspiration

As the majority of our team had not work on a finance-related theme for a hackathon before, we decided to give it a shot here. We liked budgeting apps but decided to make one feel more interactive and playful.

There are quite a few pain points when it came to pre-existing budgeting apps though -- they are generally catered toward an older demographic and assumes that there has already been knowledge about spending. But what about that transitory period, from high school to college? What about even younger than that?

The first time a user learns about proper spending habits should not be when they realize they're out of money; thus, our game is meant to be for that transition period and help younger users realize how vital it is to make proper financial decisions. We use pixelated graphics for a nostalgic vibe, reminiscent of older games that people may be comforted with. Simple controls (click and drag) make the user focus on the text and hone critical decision-making skills instead of wondering if they're "playing it right".

What it does

The game is all about balance -- the main gist of it is not overspending so that you win. You balance a happiness meter alongside six main needs that cannot go below zero, or the game ends.

How we built it

The game itself was built all in the span of 24 hours! We had two members work in Godot engine to build a baseline of the game, while the other two members would work on asset creation and handled the more visual aspects of the game. The game was then uploaded to itch.io.

Challenges we ran into

Originally, the game was supposed to start up using an NFC/RFID reader that opened a URL to the game. One challenge was that the breakout board didn't include the 4050 IC to run the board with Arduino. This is where the Raspberry Pi was attempted to use as a backup. However, there was another challenge, and that was figuring out why the Python libraries were not downloading properly. In the end, we ended up being unable to use the reader to start the game as we had previously imagined.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Giving new software and engines a shot even though we were pretty unexperienced with them. This applied to everything both front-end and backend; one of our members had never used Godot while the other two members had never touched Asperite or any other pixel / sprite-making software.

What we learned

  • How to make cool visual sprites with Asperite!
  • How to use Godot engine!
  • How to import a project onto Itch.io!
  • How to use GitHub effectively and efficiently on a larger scale!
  • How to properly scale and conceptualize goals that we felt confident enough to reach!
  • How to setup a Raspberry Pi (even if it didn't end up in the final submission)!
  • How to get enough sleep (note: in-progress)!
  • And more!

What's next for Make Cents

Maybe if we can find the proper components next time, we can use the RFID reader to make a player scan their card to enter the game, letting the game be just a little more interactive and immersive.

We also wanted to include a happiness meter so that the player can't just "cheese" their way through it and only pick the cheapest option; the meter would provide some higher stakes.

Right now, it's just one simulation; however, we wanted to add more complexity and depth by accounting for variables in different months and surprise expenses. Forcing the game to throw random events at the player forces them to think critically about the future and avoid bad spending habits so that you don't go into debt. However, we kept running into issues.

Thanks for playing~

  • Team 227

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