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Show HN: I made a sandbox game to help with financial planning

409 points by pattle 5y ago

gabereiser 5y ago
You should put a warning that it does not work on mobile. The UI isn’t compatible. I’ll check it again from my laptop later.
- pattle 5y ago
  Yeah I as going to do that but never got round to it, definitely a desktop experience
gnrlst 5y ago
Interesting to see KnockoutJS still being used in the wild! Cool game. Would like some more unexpected events to happen, and the Mortgage and Pension emails don't load, and neither does the "request valuation" of a bought property.
- pattle 5y ago
  Haha yeah, I've been using KnockoutJS since 2015 and use it on all my projects. I should probably learn React or something but if it does the job I don't see any reason to change yet. Yes unexpected "life events" is definitely something I want to add in the future. Still a very early stage MVP at the moment"
  - gnrlst 5y ago
    I get it. I was in the same boat, and played around with Vue and React for a couple projects, but since I've discovered Svelte, it's blown me away. It has the best of ALL worlds :) and it's super easy to use. Good luck!
jarin_tasnim 5y ago
ou should put a warning that it doe
jarin_tasnim 5y ago
The UI isn’t compatible.
cudder 5y ago
I tried to buy a property, they took my money but I never got anything for it. :(
- Rinum 5y ago
  Scams exist in the real world too, so realistic!
- lelanthran 5y ago
  Me too :-(
- dddddaviddddd 5y ago
  This happened when I tried to buy in cash (without a mortgage).
benja123 5y ago
This is really really cool and is the kind of thing schools should use to teach kids about money management. I would make the next turn button a bit more prominent as I did not notice it at first. I would also maybe add a bit more of a tutorial. Really cool and keep it up.
- alexf95 5y ago
  Concept wise I would agree with some tweaks of course. However, I think the style of the browser game might be a little off-putting for kids as they are not familiar with the "old windows" and generally more pixelated style.
- pattle 5y ago
  Thanks, that's kind of my end goal. In the UK we really aren't taught how to manage our finances in school but it's an invaluable skill.
euph0ria 5y ago
It simulates real life pretty well: - I have an unread email in the inbox but I can't find it - The banks send me emails with no content in the body, some email glitch on their side - I tried to buy a property, lost my solicitor's fee but never got the property - There are no good jobs available except one underpaid junior position - I pay way too much in tax compared to what I make
- azalemeth 5y ago
  This may well be an en-gb locale specific bug. Also, who's mum charges rent?
  - euph0ria 5y ago
    I think it's pretty common in Sweden at least to pay rent to your parents that cover your cost (food + symbolic rent) if you have a job and you're done with high school + uni.
  - recentdarkness 5y ago
    Mine did when I was working :P
  - sefrost 5y ago
    Everyone I know living with their parents after university pays "bed and board".
  - Smaug123 5y ago
    Indeed, it's pretty normal, though it's usually not at the rate you'd extract from a formal lodger. https://www.onefamily.com/talking-finance/finance/should-you-charge-your-kids-rent/ https://www.onefamily.com/talking-finance/finance/should-you... > According to a survey by My Job Quote people over the age of 18 and living with their parents pay on average £230 per month to their parents in rent – 65% less than the £690 median rent in England in 2018.
  - joshxyz 5y ago
    LOL
bendtb 5y ago
This was surprisingly fun.
logikblok 5y ago
Great work. I was surprised to see it UK based but it was good. I think it'll help reinforce ideas of saving, pensions and forward thinking. Things you may want to consider: - Gain graph? Some type of means to show how the gains have earned. Understand you're opting for a simulation of reality but it might help with understanding what is going on. - Economic changes / opportunities? New stock, new financial products or travel opportunities. The email inbox is quite neat and it allows perhaps for these events to be introduced. You may also like some of the mechanics from: https://thefounder.biz/play/ https://thefounder.biz/play/ https://graebor.itch.io/sort-the-court https://graebor.itch.io/sort-the-court
staticelf 5y ago
Pretty fun. If you want unlimited amount of money: Get any job, then edit the "next turn" button to include an id. Then just run this in the console: const but = document.getElementById('theidyoupicked'); for (let i = 0; i < 500; i++) { setTimeout(() => but.click(), 1000 * i)} You can lower the amount of time on the timeout, but it seems like there is some logic to prevent too fast calls. But be gentle, it seems like it does a http request each time you click on "next turn" (I hope the author has some stable hosting because people who play will spam this button anyway). I have hundreds of thousands of money but I cannot see a single property or car. It seems like there are a few bugs still.
- duggable 5y ago
  Even easier, just apply to the same job an infinite number of times at the beginning of the game, and receive multiple paychecks per month.
  - xyos 5y ago
    or even better, modify the annual payment that is sent on the request
sireat 5y ago
Very cool idea and look! Read the first few emails, checked out the bank and web and started advancing next turn. And... nothing.. just calendar advancing month at a time. No new e-mails warning me of unemployment, no warnings about expiring bank balance. You'd expect that your bank account at least would go down. Hopefully, I am not considered dead - incidentally it would be realistic to add some actuary data to the game. Not everyone makes it retirement.
spyke112 5y ago
Clearly still a work in progress, but the idea is really fun, if you're into this sort of thing... I guess I am! One thing though, the font is cool and stuff, but really hard to read.
Maofan 5y ago
Really liked the idea and spent 15-20 mins playing it. Would be good to save your progress. To be more realistic I shouldn't be able to buy a house after about 5 months of salary. Make the house prices 10 times more expensive if you want it to more like real life! Also It's not clear to me if I take the job I can't go to university? I took the job in the absence of another choice, like real life if I got a great alternative offer I would leave the job and do that instead. Nice work :-)
- trickstra 5y ago
  Also, to be more realistic there should be some unexpected expenses and disasters, forcing people to have some emergency funds available.
- ricardobeat 5y ago
  > I shouldn't be able to buy a house after about 5 months of salary Why not? If you have the cash for the downpayment, a fixed contract, and the property is within 4-5x your yearly salary, you can definitely get a mortgage. I've seen people do that within a month of arriving in a new country & job, depending on the local market it's a very smart thing to do.
pentae 5y ago
This reminds me a bit of "The game of life" back in the 90s Optimizing life for filling the savings account as fast as possible at the expense of everything else has consequences and your game should reflect this. You should have stats including your characters age, health, happiness and social skills and have some kind of social media app with your friends constantly trying to invite you out for concerts, nights out, dating? and so on so that you have constant distractions to spend your money on to make it more challenging. Not building up the happiness and social skills stats should have consequences. You should be able to buy a gym membership to keep your health stat from deteriorating. The consequences of not building up those stats early in your life is poor health, shit social skills and no friends except for the people you work with. But yay, you're a millionaire I guess? The real game of life is that it's all a balancing act between having your financial house in order while also having a fulfilling social life, health, and happiness
- scotty79 5y ago
  I think you vastly overestimate consequences of not spending money on things beyond necessities. One might argue that by spending money on concerts, nights out and dating you buy more damage to your health and well being than benefit. You can have friends without money. And you can keep healthy for free.
  - brailsafe 5y ago
    Ya, it's technically possible, but boring and tenous. If you won't spend any extra money on socializing, you're going to be a snooze to be around.
    - cpfohl 5y ago
      Sorry, kinda wanted to respond sarcastically, but I'll be direct instead: Hiking, cooking together, playing board games, card games, playing music together, exploring, and just talking are all inexpensive or free. The most interesting people I've known in my life focused on those things anyway.
deleted 5y ago
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trickstra 5y ago
I changed job and suddenly started paying rent to mum even when I've had my own house for 2 years... payment for mortgage and to mum are right next to each other. It would be nice if the houses showed the energy expenses and fees. And mortgages show the interest rate and the expected monthly payments. Oh, and every property still shows the green "Purchase successful" message since I bought the first property.
- trickstra 5y ago
  Ok, buying a second house fixed the rent to mum, but getting a second mortgage caused the first one to never finish. Now I'm paying forever, lol.
- jermaustin1 5y ago
  Mum better be refunding all this rent she's been stealing over the years since I moved out!
- callamdelaney 5y ago
  Mum ran out of money..
deleted 5y ago
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Aeolun 5y ago
This is fun. It's pretty buggy though. I bought two properties so far (hindsight is awesome), but I'm still paying rent to mom, apparently I didn't move in. Now I cannot sell or rent them out. Also, not much happens? I just sit here watching numbers go up.
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  Sounds exactly like life in this past year of prisony
- yreg 5y ago
  I cannot select variable rate on my mortgage, is that a bug?
- killtimeatwork 5y ago
  > Also, not much happens? I just sit here watching numbers go up. That describes past 10 years of my life. Fortunately, I'm (early) retiring this year.
  - tom_mellior 5y ago
    > I'm (early) retiring this year. That's the most important missing feature. After 20 years in the game, I have a house, a pension fund, and a savings account with a montly growth twice my monthly expenses. At this point there is zero incentive to continue working for ~30 more years. IRL I hope to be there around age 50. No matter how much I enjoy my job, 40 hours of "enjoyment" per week is a lot more than I want.
Oberbaumbrucke 5y ago
You can tell its not made in Australia. The bank only let's you borrow 4x your income.
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  Tried a calculator and it's 7x? Wow
- pattle 5y ago
  Yeah, maximum in the UK is 5x I think but most banks will only go up to - 4.5x
thomasfl 5y ago
Kudos for the realistic user interface!
DocTomoe 5y ago
The idea is great, but it gives some very weird ideas, like having 4% interest p.a. (not something I think still happens in the west). Maybe add a stock market fonds aspect in there (which may rise and fall), have more risky, more potentially lucrative, and less risky, more stable fonds in there.
parksy 5y ago
Kinda fun idea and with a bit of polish could be great. If you enter a negative amount when you transfer between accounts it does weird things...
tux3 5y ago
Friendly tip: Do not transfer negative amounts! They get substracted from both sides =)
- pattle 5y ago
  Oops, I will fix that
ricardobeat 5y ago
I played for around 10 minutes, quite fun. Some comments: - how would you get 4% gains in real life? it makes a massive difference, but you're unlikely to reach this unless the money is put into the stock market - was unable to sell my property (the "request valuation" button does nothing) - the university option never showed up - there were no further jobs after ~12 years of career (stopped at something like engineering manager at ~45k/year which is very low for London) - advancing month-by-month is pretty slow. there should be a way of fast-forwarding to important events (new job, promotion, housing market goes up/down, etc) - had to transfer $ to savings / pension in batches every year or so, losing out on a lot of interest. should be possible to set a monthly amount - the expenses are way too stable to reflect real life I ended the simulation at 35 years old, with €200k savings, €60k mortage equity, and €80k on a pension fund. Living on a €100k house, no car, no gifts, no travel, no family. It's not bad, but for someone saving fiercely from 18 years without any major expenses it's not a great result. Getting a high-paying job (80k+) around your 30s will land you in the exact same place, while giving you 12 years to live more liberally.
- llimos 5y ago
  It starts out set in 2002. You could absolutely get 4% on a savings account in 2002.
  - SilasX 5y ago
    That's not what I remember. I couldn't find data for 2002, but this[1] shows that savings accounts paid 0.6% at the end of 2003. Savings rates also generally track short-term Treasury rates, and those were below 2% for all of 2002. [2] Edit: Never mind, OP said this for the UK (which, nice rates btw). Leaving this comment for the links to US comparisons. [1] https://www.ncua.gov/analysis/cuso-economic-data/credit-union-bank-rates/credit-union-and-bank-rates-2003-2005 https://www.ncua.gov/analysis/cuso-economic-data/credit-unio... [2] https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yieldYear&year=2002 https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/i...
- pattle 5y ago
  The interest is set at 4% because that was typical for a savings account in the UK when the game starts (2002) but I need to make it change over time Yes I need to add more jobs and different career paths. Once I add universities the type of job you can get will depend on your degree. I'm going to add a dating aspect to the simulation so you can start a family and see the expenses associated with that. Setting a monthly savings amount is a good idea. Still a very early stage, rough round the edges simulation at the moment
prezjordan 5y ago
Wonderful work. Did you use XP.css? (https://botoxparty.github.io/XP.css/ https://botoxparty.github.io/XP.css/)
ComodoHacker 5y ago
Not sure if all of these are bugs, but: - I was able to purchase a property for only £1100 - To buy without mortgage, you should explicitly enter 0 as mortgage amount - This purchase didn't appear in my current account as a transaction, only the balance decreased correctly - The property didn't appear on Property tab (but I started to get utility bills) - No interest on pension account
paulpauper 5y ago
this look like a vps
digitalsin 5y ago
Plugged in my printer and got a BSOD :(
rkalla 5y ago
I know this is typically not a well-received style HN comment, but the name of the Pension website made me spit out coffee... this is a wonderful creation.
eitland 5y ago
When I read the comments I immediately thought about "Jones in the fast lane" from the 90ies, but this seems to be something entirely different. That said a few of you might like to see that game. It is available on internet archive, can be played online and is quite unusual for its time. At least I was happy to find it and played it once against the Jones AI (it is way funnier with friends).
imtringued 5y ago
There are too many problems to count. I got a message with the subject "Mortgage in principal" and no text. Same with pensions. The browser opens new pages without hiding old ones. Inbox count is wrong. Buttons aren't responsive (no, I don't mean mobile design). They give no indication that something is happening. Dragging windows is buggy. There is no loading animation on clicking "next turn", nothing that indicates that the month has passed. Just add a dark overlay with a black and white loading bar and show the date afterwards. I tried this in Chromium and Firefox and the problems are the same.
- pattle 5y ago
  I think part of these problems is that my server and database are really struggling with the traffic I'm getting. Trying to implement performance fixes
  - bovermyer 5y ago
    What's the database for?
    - pattle 5y ago
      Storing mail, transactions, jobs, savings, pension etc. You can't at the moment but I was to add the ability to save your progress soon.
      - bovermyer 5y ago
        If it's a matter of storing state, you could improve performance by storing all of that in localStorage and only periodically flushing it to the database backend.
- rkimb 5y ago
  This is an awfully harsh critique for a free browser game made in someone's spare time.
  - 5y ago
fallat 5y ago
I would love to play a more refined version of this.
- pattle 5y ago
  You will be able to, just give me a month
  - fallat 5y ago
    If you don't rush it, I would even say people would pay to play. Something minimal, like $5. Put it on itch.io.
jermaustin1 5y ago
This is exactly my type of game. I love the concept. There are a lot of bugs though. Do you have an issues page or anything? And are you open to working with other developers on it?
- pattle 5y ago
  Not really open to working with anyone else on this, I prefer to work alone. No issues page but I'm going to work through all the bugs highlighted in the comments. I think my email is in my profile if you want to report anything specific / request a feature.
adamrezich 5y ago
the pixel font looks really bad on Windows 10 in Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, at 1080p.
doublej818 5y ago
Didn't take me long to figure out the api endpoint to skip to the next turn, and after writing literally 3 lines of code in an infinite loop... - The year is now 2030 - I have 300,000 in my bank account - I own two houses worth 200k - I'm still paying monthly mortgage payments to a house I fully own - 100k in pension - All this with just 55k/yr - Still paying mum rent
- Smithalicious 5y ago
  How do I do this in real life?
whydoineedthis 5y ago
where is the option to 'become depressed from that long career you stuck with and blow all your money on booze and cigarettes?'
usgroup 5y ago
Please think of a way to make a board game that teaches folks the consequences of all the typical life decisions we have in common. I think it’d be a considerable service to society.
Benlights 5y ago
Why did it start paying rent to mum after owning a property. Also why did student load deductions start after taking a better paying job?
mbielski 5y ago
Interesting, fun. Would be a good idea to put a Settings option in the Start menu so that we could change things like bank interest rate (4% is nuts, nearly everything in the US is .01%) and the currency type, among other things.
josh_carterPDX 5y ago
Great build! I won't go through the glitches that people have found since they seem to be pretty common. I would, however, like to have the ability to automate my contributions to savings and the pension (like in real life). Other than that, I am going to park this in front of my high school senior to see what kind of decisions he makes. Thanks for building this!
iso1631 5y ago
So you're assuming you're lucky enough to get a fairly high paying job (for 2002) straight out of school within walking distance of your mum's house, first job you applied for too? The rent is tiny, the expenses seem really low too. For comparison my first job which required a uni degree and was in central london in 2003 was £18k a year. Rent on a bedsit was £520 a month, transport was £120 a month, student loan £59 a month, leaving £100 a week for food, bills (internet, electricity, tv, council tax, laundry+dry cleaning, etc), travel to see families, etc It's a great way of showing the massive leg-up that people who have parents living in the London commuter-belt get though.
- ratsforhorses 5y ago
  Sorry curious, 18k works out at 1'500 a month, your expenses were 1100, was the rest tax?
nopcode 5y ago
Woah this is just as boring as figuring out in real life. kudos.
WesleyJohnson 5y ago
Any intentions of open sourcing?
xjlin0 5y ago
Very fun game! Some observations: 1. don't know why it need to calls to get https://simulator.money/img/windows-xp-bg.jpg and dings/chimes.mp3 on every month. (Although cached by browser) 2. After purchase a property, it does not listed under properties tab in the bank, even with monthly utility bills. 3. Some missing mails there, maybe associate with mismatch unread count. 4. As a player, I am not sure what is the unit of "mortgage last", is it month or years? Very looking forward to other options such as college/cars/jobs, etc. Great work!
eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 5y ago
Is it correct that the mortgage keeps on billing me even though it is in negative balance = paid off, and the 1 year I have set it to has also expired?
elil17 5y ago
I'm really glad I read the disclaimer and didn't make financial decisions based on this game! I wouldn't want to count on no inflation, 4% interest, and a junior dev job straight out of high school
szhu 5y ago
Love the theme! Honestly, I would play this game just to spend more time in Windows XP.
npsimons 5y ago
Neat looking, but I've already been playing this "game" IRL for the past couple of decades; I really don't feel like grinding all over again from scratch.
may 5y ago
This is great and shows real promise, do you have a mailing list so we can be subscribed for updates/when you reach 0.5? also I'm paying my mum rent after I bought property wtf?
sanmak 5y ago
Kudos for the idea and execution. Microsoft Windows layout is a killer. I'm not sure about saving the game progress though. Bookmarked the app. Will play it again.
amirmaleki 5y ago
Most of the features don't work, and there is no guidance at all. I can't declare bankruptcy (the spelling is also incorrect), buy a car, sell a property, request valuation, etc... It was a good idea, but it doesn't do what is meant to do.
yrgulation 5y ago
I spent an hour on this game. And it seems like people here also spent good time on it. Safe to say this may be a valid product idea @op!
hipjiveguy 5y ago
this is super cool... i want to have my kids do it, but it's a bit too buggy - it has to work for teenagers, with zero bugs... open a patreon, and I will donate!

409 points by pattle 5y ago

You should put a warning that it does not work on mobile. The UI isn’t compatible. I’ll check it again from my laptop later.

pattle 5y ago
Yeah I as going to do that but never got round to it, definitely a desktop experience

gnrlst 5y ago

Interesting to see KnockoutJS still being used in the wild! Cool game. Would like some more unexpected events to happen, and the Mortgage and Pension emails don't load, and neither does the "request valuation" of a bought property.

pattle 5y ago
Haha yeah, I've been using KnockoutJS since 2015 and use it on all my projects. I should probably learn React or something but if it does the job I don't see any reason to change yet. Yes unexpected "life events" is definitely something I want to add in the future. Still a very early stage MVP at the moment"
- gnrlst 5y ago
  I get it. I was in the same boat, and played around with Vue and React for a couple projects, but since I've discovered Svelte, it's blown me away. It has the best of ALL worlds :) and it's super easy to use. Good luck!

jarin_tasnim 5y ago

ou should put a warning that it doe

jarin_tasnim 5y ago

The UI isn’t compatible.

cudder 5y ago

I tried to buy a property, they took my money but I never got anything for it. :(

Rinum 5y ago
Scams exist in the real world too, so realistic!
lelanthran 5y ago
Me too :-(
dddddaviddddd 5y ago
This happened when I tried to buy in cash (without a mortgage).

benja123 5y ago

This is really really cool and is the kind of thing schools should use to teach kids about money management. I would make the next turn button a bit more prominent as I did not notice it at first. I would also maybe add a bit more of a tutorial. Really cool and keep it up.

alexf95 5y ago
Concept wise I would agree with some tweaks of course. However, I think the style of the browser game might be a little off-putting for kids as they are not familiar with the "old windows" and generally more pixelated style.
pattle 5y ago
Thanks, that's kind of my end goal. In the UK we really aren't taught how to manage our finances in school but it's an invaluable skill.

euph0ria 5y ago

It simulates real life pretty well: - I have an unread email in the inbox but I can't find it - The banks send me emails with no content in the body, some email glitch on their side - I tried to buy a property, lost my solicitor's fee but never got the property - There are no good jobs available except one underpaid junior position - I pay way too much in tax compared to what I make

azalemeth 5y ago
This may well be an en-gb locale specific bug. Also, who's mum charges rent?
- euph0ria 5y ago
  I think it's pretty common in Sweden at least to pay rent to your parents that cover your cost (food + symbolic rent) if you have a job and you're done with high school + uni.
- recentdarkness 5y ago
  Mine did when I was working :P
- sefrost 5y ago
  Everyone I know living with their parents after university pays "bed and board".
- Smaug123 5y ago
  Indeed, it's pretty normal, though it's usually not at the rate you'd extract from a formal lodger. https://www.onefamily.com/talking-finance/finance/should-you-charge-your-kids-rent/ https://www.onefamily.com/talking-finance/finance/should-you... > According to a survey by My Job Quote people over the age of 18 and living with their parents pay on average £230 per month to their parents in rent – 65% less than the £690 median rent in England in 2018.
- joshxyz 5y ago
  LOL

bendtb 5y ago

This was surprisingly fun.

logikblok 5y ago

Great work. I was surprised to see it UK based but it was good. I think it'll help reinforce ideas of saving, pensions and forward thinking. Things you may want to consider: - Gain graph? Some type of means to show how the gains have earned. Understand you're opting for a simulation of reality but it might help with understanding what is going on. - Economic changes / opportunities? New stock, new financial products or travel opportunities. The email inbox is quite neat and it allows perhaps for these events to be introduced. You may also like some of the mechanics from: https://thefounder.biz/play/ https://thefounder.biz/play/ https://graebor.itch.io/sort-the-court https://graebor.itch.io/sort-the-court

staticelf 5y ago

Pretty fun. If you want unlimited amount of money: Get any job, then edit the "next turn" button to include an id. Then just run this in the console: const but = document.getElementById('theidyoupicked'); for (let i = 0; i < 500; i++) { setTimeout(() => but.click(), 1000 * i)} You can lower the amount of time on the timeout, but it seems like there is some logic to prevent too fast calls. But be gentle, it seems like it does a http request each time you click on "next turn" (I hope the author has some stable hosting because people who play will spam this button anyway). I have hundreds of thousands of money but I cannot see a single property or car. It seems like there are a few bugs still.

duggable 5y ago
Even easier, just apply to the same job an infinite number of times at the beginning of the game, and receive multiple paychecks per month.
- xyos 5y ago
  or even better, modify the annual payment that is sent on the request

sireat 5y ago

Very cool idea and look! Read the first few emails, checked out the bank and web and started advancing next turn. And... nothing.. just calendar advancing month at a time. No new e-mails warning me of unemployment, no warnings about expiring bank balance. You'd expect that your bank account at least would go down. Hopefully, I am not considered dead - incidentally it would be realistic to add some actuary data to the game. Not everyone makes it retirement.

spyke112 5y ago

Clearly still a work in progress, but the idea is really fun, if you're into this sort of thing... I guess I am! One thing though, the font is cool and stuff, but really hard to read.

Maofan 5y ago

Really liked the idea and spent 15-20 mins playing it. Would be good to save your progress. To be more realistic I shouldn't be able to buy a house after about 5 months of salary. Make the house prices 10 times more expensive if you want it to more like real life! Also It's not clear to me if I take the job I can't go to university? I took the job in the absence of another choice, like real life if I got a great alternative offer I would leave the job and do that instead. Nice work :-)

trickstra 5y ago
Also, to be more realistic there should be some unexpected expenses and disasters, forcing people to have some emergency funds available.
ricardobeat 5y ago
> I shouldn't be able to buy a house after about 5 months of salary Why not? If you have the cash for the downpayment, a fixed contract, and the property is within 4-5x your yearly salary, you can definitely get a mortgage. I've seen people do that within a month of arriving in a new country & job, depending on the local market it's a very smart thing to do.

pentae 5y ago

This reminds me a bit of "The game of life" back in the 90s Optimizing life for filling the savings account as fast as possible at the expense of everything else has consequences and your game should reflect this. You should have stats including your characters age, health, happiness and social skills and have some kind of social media app with your friends constantly trying to invite you out for concerts, nights out, dating? and so on so that you have constant distractions to spend your money on to make it more challenging. Not building up the happiness and social skills stats should have consequences. You should be able to buy a gym membership to keep your health stat from deteriorating. The consequences of not building up those stats early in your life is poor health, shit social skills and no friends except for the people you work with. But yay, you're a millionaire I guess? The real game of life is that it's all a balancing act between having your financial house in order while also having a fulfilling social life, health, and happiness

scotty79 5y ago
I think you vastly overestimate consequences of not spending money on things beyond necessities. One might argue that by spending money on concerts, nights out and dating you buy more damage to your health and well being than benefit. You can have friends without money. And you can keep healthy for free.
- brailsafe 5y ago
  Ya, it's technically possible, but boring and tenous. If you won't spend any extra money on socializing, you're going to be a snooze to be around.
  - cpfohl 5y ago
    Sorry, kinda wanted to respond sarcastically, but I'll be direct instead: Hiking, cooking together, playing board games, card games, playing music together, exploring, and just talking are all inexpensive or free. The most interesting people I've known in my life focused on those things anyway.

deleted 5y ago

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trickstra 5y ago

I changed job and suddenly started paying rent to mum even when I've had my own house for 2 years... payment for mortgage and to mum are right next to each other. It would be nice if the houses showed the energy expenses and fees. And mortgages show the interest rate and the expected monthly payments. Oh, and every property still shows the green "Purchase successful" message since I bought the first property.

trickstra 5y ago
Ok, buying a second house fixed the rent to mum, but getting a second mortgage caused the first one to never finish. Now I'm paying forever, lol.
jermaustin1 5y ago
Mum better be refunding all this rent she's been stealing over the years since I moved out!
callamdelaney 5y ago
Mum ran out of money..

deleted 5y ago

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Aeolun 5y ago

This is fun. It's pretty buggy though. I bought two properties so far (hindsight is awesome), but I'm still paying rent to mom, apparently I didn't move in. Now I cannot sell or rent them out. Also, not much happens? I just sit here watching numbers go up.

jokethrowaway 5y ago
Sounds exactly like life in this past year of prisony
yreg 5y ago
I cannot select variable rate on my mortgage, is that a bug?
killtimeatwork 5y ago
> Also, not much happens? I just sit here watching numbers go up. That describes past 10 years of my life. Fortunately, I'm (early) retiring this year.
- tom_mellior 5y ago
  > I'm (early) retiring this year. That's the most important missing feature. After 20 years in the game, I have a house, a pension fund, and a savings account with a montly growth twice my monthly expenses. At this point there is zero incentive to continue working for ~30 more years. IRL I hope to be there around age 50. No matter how much I enjoy my job, 40 hours of "enjoyment" per week is a lot more than I want.

Oberbaumbrucke 5y ago

You can tell its not made in Australia. The bank only let's you borrow 4x your income.

jokethrowaway 5y ago
Tried a calculator and it's 7x? Wow
pattle 5y ago
Yeah, maximum in the UK is 5x I think but most banks will only go up to - 4.5x

thomasfl 5y ago

Kudos for the realistic user interface!

DocTomoe 5y ago

The idea is great, but it gives some very weird ideas, like having 4% interest p.a. (not something I think still happens in the west). Maybe add a stock market fonds aspect in there (which may rise and fall), have more risky, more potentially lucrative, and less risky, more stable fonds in there.

parksy 5y ago

Kinda fun idea and with a bit of polish could be great. If you enter a negative amount when you transfer between accounts it does weird things...

tux3 5y ago

Friendly tip: Do not transfer negative amounts! They get substracted from both sides =)

pattle 5y ago
Oops, I will fix that

ricardobeat 5y ago

I played for around 10 minutes, quite fun. Some comments: - how would you get 4% gains in real life? it makes a massive difference, but you're unlikely to reach this unless the money is put into the stock market - was unable to sell my property (the "request valuation" button does nothing) - the university option never showed up - there were no further jobs after ~12 years of career (stopped at something like engineering manager at ~45k/year which is very low for London) - advancing month-by-month is pretty slow. there should be a way of fast-forwarding to important events (new job, promotion, housing market goes up/down, etc) - had to transfer $ to savings / pension in batches every year or so, losing out on a lot of interest. should be possible to set a monthly amount - the expenses are way too stable to reflect real life I ended the simulation at 35 years old, with €200k savings, €60k mortage equity, and €80k on a pension fund. Living on a €100k house, no car, no gifts, no travel, no family. It's not bad, but for someone saving fiercely from 18 years without any major expenses it's not a great result. Getting a high-paying job (80k+) around your 30s will land you in the exact same place, while giving you 12 years to live more liberally.

llimos 5y ago
It starts out set in 2002. You could absolutely get 4% on a savings account in 2002.
- SilasX 5y ago
  That's not what I remember. I couldn't find data for 2002, but this[1] shows that savings accounts paid 0.6% at the end of 2003. Savings rates also generally track short-term Treasury rates, and those were below 2% for all of 2002. [2] Edit: Never mind, OP said this for the UK (which, nice rates btw). Leaving this comment for the links to US comparisons. [1] https://www.ncua.gov/analysis/cuso-economic-data/credit-union-bank-rates/credit-union-and-bank-rates-2003-2005 https://www.ncua.gov/analysis/cuso-economic-data/credit-unio... [2] https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yieldYear&year=2002 https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/i...
pattle 5y ago
The interest is set at 4% because that was typical for a savings account in the UK when the game starts (2002) but I need to make it change over time Yes I need to add more jobs and different career paths. Once I add universities the type of job you can get will depend on your degree. I'm going to add a dating aspect to the simulation so you can start a family and see the expenses associated with that. Setting a monthly savings amount is a good idea. Still a very early stage, rough round the edges simulation at the moment

prezjordan 5y ago

Wonderful work. Did you use XP.css? (https://botoxparty.github.io/XP.css/ https://botoxparty.github.io/XP.css/)

ComodoHacker 5y ago

Not sure if all of these are bugs, but: - I was able to purchase a property for only £1100 - To buy without mortgage, you should explicitly enter 0 as mortgage amount - This purchase didn't appear in my current account as a transaction, only the balance decreased correctly - The property didn't appear on Property tab (but I started to get utility bills) - No interest on pension account

paulpauper 5y ago

this look like a vps

digitalsin 5y ago

Plugged in my printer and got a BSOD :(

rkalla 5y ago

I know this is typically not a well-received style HN comment, but the name of the Pension website made me spit out coffee... this is a wonderful creation.

eitland 5y ago

When I read the comments I immediately thought about "Jones in the fast lane" from the 90ies, but this seems to be something entirely different. That said a few of you might like to see that game. It is available on internet archive, can be played online and is quite unusual for its time. At least I was happy to find it and played it once against the Jones AI (it is way funnier with friends).

imtringued 5y ago

There are too many problems to count. I got a message with the subject "Mortgage in principal" and no text. Same with pensions. The browser opens new pages without hiding old ones. Inbox count is wrong. Buttons aren't responsive (no, I don't mean mobile design). They give no indication that something is happening. Dragging windows is buggy. There is no loading animation on clicking "next turn", nothing that indicates that the month has passed. Just add a dark overlay with a black and white loading bar and show the date afterwards. I tried this in Chromium and Firefox and the problems are the same.

pattle 5y ago
I think part of these problems is that my server and database are really struggling with the traffic I'm getting. Trying to implement performance fixes
- bovermyer 5y ago
  What's the database for?
  - pattle 5y ago
    Storing mail, transactions, jobs, savings, pension etc. You can't at the moment but I was to add the ability to save your progress soon.
    - bovermyer 5y ago
      If it's a matter of storing state, you could improve performance by storing all of that in localStorage and only periodically flushing it to the database backend.
rkimb 5y ago
This is an awfully harsh critique for a free browser game made in someone's spare time.
- 5y ago

fallat 5y ago

I would love to play a more refined version of this.

pattle 5y ago
You will be able to, just give me a month
- fallat 5y ago
  If you don't rush it, I would even say people would pay to play. Something minimal, like $5. Put it on itch.io.

jermaustin1 5y ago

This is exactly my type of game. I love the concept. There are a lot of bugs though. Do you have an issues page or anything? And are you open to working with other developers on it?

pattle 5y ago
Not really open to working with anyone else on this, I prefer to work alone. No issues page but I'm going to work through all the bugs highlighted in the comments. I think my email is in my profile if you want to report anything specific / request a feature.

adamrezich 5y ago

the pixel font looks really bad on Windows 10 in Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, at 1080p.

doublej818 5y ago

Didn't take me long to figure out the api endpoint to skip to the next turn, and after writing literally 3 lines of code in an infinite loop... - The year is now 2030 - I have 300,000 in my bank account - I own two houses worth 200k - I'm still paying monthly mortgage payments to a house I fully own - 100k in pension - All this with just 55k/yr - Still paying mum rent

Smithalicious 5y ago
How do I do this in real life?

whydoineedthis 5y ago

where is the option to 'become depressed from that long career you stuck with and blow all your money on booze and cigarettes?'

usgroup 5y ago

Please think of a way to make a board game that teaches folks the consequences of all the typical life decisions we have in common. I think it’d be a considerable service to society.

Benlights 5y ago

Why did it start paying rent to mum after owning a property. Also why did student load deductions start after taking a better paying job?

mbielski 5y ago

Interesting, fun. Would be a good idea to put a Settings option in the Start menu so that we could change things like bank interest rate (4% is nuts, nearly everything in the US is .01%) and the currency type, among other things.

josh_carterPDX 5y ago

Great build! I won't go through the glitches that people have found since they seem to be pretty common. I would, however, like to have the ability to automate my contributions to savings and the pension (like in real life). Other than that, I am going to park this in front of my high school senior to see what kind of decisions he makes. Thanks for building this!

iso1631 5y ago

So you're assuming you're lucky enough to get a fairly high paying job (for 2002) straight out of school within walking distance of your mum's house, first job you applied for too? The rent is tiny, the expenses seem really low too. For comparison my first job which required a uni degree and was in central london in 2003 was £18k a year. Rent on a bedsit was £520 a month, transport was £120 a month, student loan £59 a month, leaving £100 a week for food, bills (internet, electricity, tv, council tax, laundry+dry cleaning, etc), travel to see families, etc It's a great way of showing the massive leg-up that people who have parents living in the London commuter-belt get though.

ratsforhorses 5y ago
Sorry curious, 18k works out at 1'500 a month, your expenses were 1100, was the rest tax?

nopcode 5y ago

Woah this is just as boring as figuring out in real life. kudos.

WesleyJohnson 5y ago

Any intentions of open sourcing?

xjlin0 5y ago

Very fun game! Some observations: 1. don't know why it need to calls to get https://simulator.money/img/windows-xp-bg.jpg and dings/chimes.mp3 on every month. (Although cached by browser) 2. After purchase a property, it does not listed under properties tab in the bank, even with monthly utility bills. 3. Some missing mails there, maybe associate with mismatch unread count. 4. As a player, I am not sure what is the unit of "mortgage last", is it month or years? Very looking forward to other options such as college/cars/jobs, etc. Great work!

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 5y ago

Is it correct that the mortgage keeps on billing me even though it is in negative balance = paid off, and the 1 year I have set it to has also expired?

elil17 5y ago

I'm really glad I read the disclaimer and didn't make financial decisions based on this game! I wouldn't want to count on no inflation, 4% interest, and a junior dev job straight out of high school

szhu 5y ago

Love the theme! Honestly, I would play this game just to spend more time in Windows XP.

npsimons 5y ago

Neat looking, but I've already been playing this "game" IRL for the past couple of decades; I really don't feel like grinding all over again from scratch.

may 5y ago

This is great and shows real promise, do you have a mailing list so we can be subscribed for updates/when you reach 0.5? also I'm paying my mum rent after I bought property wtf?

sanmak 5y ago

Kudos for the idea and execution. Microsoft Windows layout is a killer. I'm not sure about saving the game progress though. Bookmarked the app. Will play it again.

amirmaleki 5y ago

Most of the features don't work, and there is no guidance at all. I can't declare bankruptcy (the spelling is also incorrect), buy a car, sell a property, request valuation, etc... It was a good idea, but it doesn't do what is meant to do.

yrgulation 5y ago

I spent an hour on this game. And it seems like people here also spent good time on it. Safe to say this may be a valid product idea @op!

hipjiveguy 5y ago

this is super cool... i want to have my kids do it, but it's a bit too buggy - it has to work for teenagers, with zero bugs... open a patreon, and I will donate!