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Program 02 · Educational games

Choices

A life simulator where every financial decision has consequences. The player moves through life — from childhood pocket money to a first job and beyond — making choices with real trade-offs: spend or save, pay in installments or wait, study or work. The pedagogy is lived through consequence, not lectures.

Agenda 2030

Alignment with the 2030 Agenda

The game articulates three Sustainable Development Goals through the choice-and-consequence mechanic: financial education (SDG 4), work and income (SDG 8), and responsible consumption (SDG 12). As in the other games in the series, the pedagogy is lived — the student learns by deciding and watching the result month after month. Keep this in sync with the pedagogical manifest in the choices repository.

ODS 4

Educação de Qualidade

Assegurar a educação inclusiva, equitativa e de qualidade, e promover oportunidades de aprendizagem ao longo da vida para todos

The game is, in practice, a financial-education lab: concepts like budgeting, compound interest, credit, and opportunity cost are not explained in text but experienced through concrete decisions. A financial-literacy meter rises when the player understands the mechanics behind each choice.

Evidências no jogo

  • More than 40 mapped financial concepts (budgeting, debt, compound interest, credit, opportunity cost) linked to the math strands of the Brazilian curriculum (BNCC).
  • The 'study or take a gig the same afternoon' decision stages opportunity cost: education goes up and cash goes down — or the reverse.
  • Each choice logs the concepts and BNCC skills the student encountered, forming a pedagogical report of the playthrough.

ODS 8

Trabalho Decente e Crescimento Econômico

Promover o crescimento econômico sustentado, inclusivo e sustentável, emprego pleno e produtivo, e trabalho decente para todos

Income, work, and entrepreneurship are at the heart of the game. The player starts with informal gigs (selling sweets, making deliveries, digital freelancing) and moves toward a first formal job, living the difference between variable income with no floor and stable income, between margin and revenue, between formality and informality. Breaking the cycle of poverty across generations, with decent work and opportunity, is conflict prevention — the social face of a culture of peace.

Evidências no jogo

  • The 'First job' arc stages entry into formal employment; teenage gigs show variable, informal income.
  • The first-gig event teaches margin: before the first sale there is already spending — ingredients, gas, packaging; what comes back above cost is the margin.
  • The character's drawn socioeconomic origin shapes opportunities — the game makes inequality and mobility through work and education visible.

ODS 12

Consumo e Produção Responsáveis

Assegurar padrões de produção e de consumo sustentáveis

Mindful consumption is worked through everyday decisions: buy on impulse or wait, put it on mom's card in installments or save up, fall for the loot box (gacha) or hold back. The game reveals the real cost hidden behind each offer — the interest on installments, the lottery odds, the pressure of 'free shipping until midnight'.

Evidências no jogo

  • The installment-sneaker event: the payment disappears into '10x', but the card charges interest on the balance; adding it up month by month, the final number passes the shop-window price.
  • The loot-box event (2% per try) demonstrates probability: on average it takes dozens of boxes for the rare one to drop — the real price is the sum of them all, not the last one.
  • Essential and discretionary spending compete for the same monthly budget — the same installment squeezes harder when it shares space with the household bills.

Open resource

A game to talk about money without preaching

Choices is free, requires no sign-up, and collects no personal data — it runs in the browser and works offline, installable as an app (PWA). With each choice, time advances a few months, and the consequences show up in cash, debt, education, and well-being. There is no 'right' ending: there are trade-offs.

Open the game

It works offline after the first visit — we recommend adding it to the home screen on mobile.

BNCC

Audience and BNCC

The content is calibrated to Financial Education as a cross-cutting contemporary theme of the Brazilian curriculum (BNCC), strongly anchored in Mathematics (percentages, simple and compound interest, probability) from middle school to high school.

Stage
Middle school + High school
Curricular components
Mathematics · Geography

Thematic strands covered

  • Financial education (cross-cutting contemporary theme)
  • Budgeting and consumption
  • Work and income
  • Debt and compound interest
  • Credit and installments
  • Opportunity cost
  • Savings and reserve
  • Probability and risk
  • Inequality and social mobility
  • Mindful consumption

Programa

How to use it in class

  1. 01

    Before playing

    Open the conversation: what is a budget? Why does paying only the minimum on a bill make debt grow? Is it worth paying in installments? Each decision in the game is one of these real situations — agree to watch the balance with every choice.

  2. 02

    Play and compare trajectories

    Each student (or pair) leads one life. Because the choices differ, the trajectories diverge: compare who ended with a reserve, who fell into the debt snowball, and who prioritized study. The drawn origin also changes the starting point — a good hook to discuss inequality.

  3. 03

    Close with the concept checklist

    At the end of the playthrough, revisit the lived concepts — compound interest, opportunity cost, margin, probability — and tie each to the decision that triggered it. The playthrough report helps map what came up.

Recurso

Quick facts

Platform
Modern browser (installable PWA, works offline)
Age range
Ages 11–17 (middle and high school)
Duration
Short sessions (one choice at a time) or a full playthrough of 30 to 60 minutes
Language
Portuguese (PT-BR)
Identification
Anonymous — no sign-up, data saved on the device only (LGPD)
Ownership
CS Hub · use licensed to NCS (free for schools)

Curadoria

Pedagogical sources

The game draws on Brazilian and international financial-education references and on the national curriculum.

  • Central Bank of Brazil — Aprender Valor
  • ENEF — National Financial Education Strategy
  • CVM — Brazilian Securities Commission (financial education)
  • BNCC — Financial education (cross-cutting theme)
  • OECD/INFE — financial education competencies

Realização

Credits

Concept, design, and technical direction by Prof. Guilherme Fonseca, from an idea that started with the school's students. Made available by NCS as educational material, under the ownership of CS Hub Tecnologia de Validação Ltda. For suggestions on classroom use or school partnerships, contact the team through the website's contact form.

Open the game

Direitos

Ownership and rights

The educational games are owned by CS Hub Tecnologia de Validação Ltda (CNPJ 64.407.447/0001-62, Londrina/PR), which grants NCS a license for institutional, educational, and training use. Use by schools and educators is free of charge. Authorship and technical direction: Prof. Guilherme Fonseca.