NEW MEXICO – A team from New Mexico State University’s Cooperative Extension Service has launched a web version of the financial education game “Night of Living Debt.”
The game, helps users solve problems such as money management, credit scores, among others.
The media production team at NMSU’s Innovation Media and Learning Games Research and Extension Lab in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences developed the new web version with support from New Technologies in Agricultural Extension Foundation Extension, in collaboration with University of Idaho Extension.
In 2016, the original iPad version of the game was produced with support from CoBank and is still available.
“This is a redesign of an already successful game. It was originally designed for iPads, and we saw the need to scale that to be more accessible to people playing on a web browser,” said Matheus Cezarotto, Educational Technology Extension specialist with Innovative Media Research and Extension.
According to Cezarotto, the game’s accessibility was also improved by making it fully playable with keyboard controls for users with motor needs. While to better support the cognitive needs of players, an introduction on how the game works, and more commentary was added.
The original iPad version of the game won several awards, including “Best Overall Digital Game” at the Meaningful Play Conference, Gold at the International Serious Play Awards and the Association for Communication Excellence’s Gold Award for Interactive Media Program.
In addition to the new version of the game, a teaching guide for classroom use is available. The resource includes videos, available soon, from Luke Erickson, Idaho associate professor and Extension specialist – personal finance, explaining how the game teaches real-life skills.
