How Not To Suck at Money

Invesco QQQ’s HNTSAM is a free web-based game that offers an interactive learning experience based on real-world financial situations. The narrative-led and purposeful gameplay explores a series of financial dilemmas.

The game was built in collaboration with Preloaded and Leo Learning game development studio. We worked with illustrator Jose Mendez to develop the world. Preloaded transformed Jose’s art into dynamic 3D characters, and built out an immersive world.

The Game Updates

I joined the Invesco QQQ team a year after HNTSAM launched and supported in the development of updated features that helped to streamline the game experience. I worked with the Preloaded team to develop new navigation functions, mini-games, diverse characters, new environments, save functions, FAQ behaviors and more.

Character Diversity

When tasked with how to improve on the character design, I cared about showcasing diversity of identity and disability. I also pushed for the inclusion of pronouns for all of the characters, to help standardize the usage.

Fatima (she/her), Marcus (he/him) with Rocky the service dog, and Taylor (they/them)!

A little IYKYK Easter Egg: Taylor is queer and nonbinary and loves fashion, they are named after Taylor Magazine.

Game Navigation Improvements

One of the elements we wanted to improve upon was lesson tracking, mini-game tracking and in-game map traversal. We designed a new HUD element that served as the players “phone” to track progress. We wanted it to feel intuitive and connect to visual cues that were easy to recognize.