Money Simulator

Today I have released version 0.7.0 of Money Simulator.

The biggest additional in this release was adding a messenger application (think MSN) where love interests can contact you.

This feature is a little primitive at the moment but it will lead into amore complete relationship system where you can find a partner, get married and potentially have children.

Exciting times ahead.

You can read the release notes here https://simulator.money/release-notes

It's been a while since I've done any work on Money Simulator, nearly 3 months in fact but today I have released version 0.6.0.

Something that quite a few users have suggested I add is the ability to save and load games as playing a game from start to finish can be quite a big time commitment and from today you can now do that!

This was actually a pretty big change because all of the code was using the ID of the user rather than the ID of a game. Alongside that I've fixed a few other bugs and made some small performance improvements.

You can read the release notes here https://simulator.money/release-notes

I have shipped version 0.5.0 of Money Simulator today.

NEW FEATURES

• Added ability to go to university and get a degree
• Added banner adverts to some internet pages
• Added new jobs that require a degree
• Added ability to resign from a job

BUG FIXES

• Fixed background refresh bug.
• Fixed desktop icons overflowing.

IMPROVEMENTS

• Clippy now appears to make prompt more visible
• Changed some assets to .webp
• Improved page layout on smaller screens

I have shipped version 0.4.0 of Money Simulator today.

NEW FEATURES

• Added ability to buy and sell cars
• Added jobs that depend on you owning your own car
• Cars require valid insurance and MOT
• Annual management fee is now deducted from pensions

I have shipped version 0.3.0 of Money Simulator today.

NEW FEATURES

• Added ability to make standing orders
• Added overdraft fees

BUG FIXES

• Fixed bug where Mum can start charging rent again after a job change.

IMPROVEMENTS

• Updated favicon to something more relevant
• Made table of emails fixed width so it stops resizing

I have shipped version 0.2.0 of Money Simulator today.

NEW FEATURES

• Added some missing email content
• Added more jobs
• Added profile dialog with name, age, CV

BUG FIXES

• Fixed bug where Mum can start charging rent again after a job change.

IMPROVEMENTS

• Increased font size for better legibility
• General performance improvements

Today I launched Money Simulator on Hacker News. I really wasn't expecting much so I closed the tab after I posted it but around 20 minutes afterwards I started getting notifications on Twitter, so decided to check back on it and to my surprise I was number 1!

Overall the site got around 15,000 visitors although that number is probably higher as not all visits will be tracked. My server held up pretty well although the DB was a bit of a bottleneck when the load was at it's heaviest.

Generally the feedback was positive, the concept and novelty of the site went down really well although there were some bugs that I need to fix ASAP.

I think it's been around 8 years since I was last top of Hacker News so it's definitely a nice confidence boost.

Something I only just started thinking about in the last few years is retirement and planning my finances for the future. Financial planning is never something we are really taught in school so it has to be picked up somewhere else.

I wish I started thinking about it the moment I started working, but I guess doing it later is better than never at all. I also noticed a trend among my social circle that not many people seem to give it much thought.

Therefore I decided to build an educational sandbox game that actually shows your how your decisions now affect your future.