Bodega Budget

Navigate through the financial landscape in the year 2050, where you invest, save, and budget in a futuristic bodega.

Description

We are team Interest Curve, a group of graduate students from Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center, working on a client project called Bodega Budget with Syclus. The project aims at educating teens in the African-American community about finance and budgeting, to facilitate upwards mobility in future generations.

Bodega Budget is a roguelike experience designed to introduce teens to fundamental financial concepts such as budgeting, saving, and investing. Through gameplay, players engage with personal finance in a hands-on, experiential way.

At the start of each in-game month, players must first cover their essential living expenses. With the remaining balance, they make strategic decisions: deposit money into savings or invest in the stock market. Throughout the month, players observe market fluctuations and experience the outcomes of their financial choices.

Players are not alone in this journey. At the end of each month, they can interact with members of the bodega community, each offering unique upgrades that support the player’s progress and strategy.

Rather than focusing on a single immediately applicable skill, the game aims to cultivate a broader, more intuitive understanding of personal finance and investment through repeated play and decision-making.