An earlier basic build had the finance exercises, but not the clear progression, game elements, or character-led motivation of the current design. I shaped a narrative-led experience in which learners build an accountancy practice and see their progress take shape. Alongside the game, an educator portal supports course management and helps teachers understand where learners need support.
The early experience let learners complete finance tasks without a clear reason to return. The redesign adds visible progression, game mechanics, inclusive characters, and feedback intended to make practice more motivating. The brief covered the full journey, character system, screens, and development handoff.
I audited the existing experience, defined the gamification architecture, designed screens and the mascot system, created and animated characters, and produced a screen-by-screen design document. My animation background shaped how progression and personality could support the learning experience.
The player is building an accountancy practice. I used that narrative to connect XP, the journey map, a linear unlock system, and rewards across the learning arc.
The learning content stays central; the surrounding structure gives it continuity.
The current month is open and clearly signposted. Future months remain visible but visually quieter.
Progression can create anticipation while keeping the next available action clear.
The implemented mascot system grows from an acorn to a sprout and then an oak, mirroring the learner’s development across levels. Correct and incorrect answer animations give the companion a role in moment-to-moment feedback as well as long-term progression.
The mascot connects the product’s visual identity to its growth story.
The Colour Accounting approach gives assets, liabilities, equity, income, and expenses a consistent place on screen. Learners work through a business transaction by choosing where its effects belong, then check their answer.
The accounting equation becomes something to interact with, rather than a formula to memorise.
The companion develops alongside the learner. Each stage responds to correct and incorrect answers with its own animation, connecting immediate feedback to the wider growth journey.
Correct answer
Incorrect answer
Correct answer
Incorrect answer
Correct answer
Incorrect answer
Beyond Level 1’s four musicians, I designed four tech-company CEOs for Level 2 and twelve sector clients for Level 3. The later levels remain in development.
Certificates show performance across levels. Transaction badges recognise individual accounting scenarios, while business badges connect achievements to the entities and sectors encountered along the journey. Earned and unearned states keep progress visible.
The learner experience is one side of BFF. The companion admin portal gives teachers a way to manage course groups, review participation, and understand performance across the game’s learning stages. I built an interactive prototype in Google AI Studio to explore these workflows across tutor, university-admin, and platform-admin roles.
Course Health compares performance across four gameplay stages, with filters for level and month. Teachers can then inspect individual questions, success rates, and answer distributions to understand which mistakes recur.
A class average gives an overview; the question breakdown helps a teacher decide what to revisit.
Course groups combine curriculum skill summaries with a student roster. Filters distinguish students who have logged into the game from those who have not, while the leaderboard brings together XP, current level, month, scores, and achievements.
Teachers can review both how learners are performing and who has started participating.
Tutors work with their course groups and learning diagnostics. University administrators manage tutor onboarding, course setup, and seat allocation. Platform administrators oversee university licenses and capacity.
The same product supports classroom teaching and the administration needed to deliver it.
A planned extension will let teachers launch a live quiz during a class, with students answering on their phones inside the BFF game. After each session, teachers will be able to review quiz scores and see who performed well. This feature is planned for development and is not included in the current portal prototype.
Be Finance Fluent has launched for Aston University students and is in active use. The mascot system is implemented in the game, connecting learner progression with character growth and animated answer feedback. The experience continues to evolve, with live class quizzes planned as a future extension.
View the game on Google PlayEarly feedback from Aston University students and other testers has been positive: they enjoy the game and see it as a more engaging way to practise financial concepts. This is qualitative feedback; retention and learning outcomes have not yet been measured.
The educator portal is presented here as an interactive prototype with demo data. Its screens demonstrate the intended workflows; they do not establish live game-data integration or measured teaching outcomes.
Character and motion work best when they explain progress and support the learner. The opportunity is to test whether the narrative helps students return—and whether returning leads to learning.