Gamifying financial literacy

Turning financial literacy into an immersive, youth-powered gaming experience.

THE CHALLENGE

NCS (National Citizen Service Trust) tasked Livity and our long term partner, PRELOADED, an immersive games studio; to create a game that would help young people develop essential life skills and to identify which skills mattered most. Livity conducted mixed-method research with young people and the adults in their lives to determine where the greatest need lay, revealing a clear gap in financial literacy. NCS therefore set out to bridge the gap between traditional financial education and the daily reality of 15–17-year-olds, tasking us with delivering their mission in a format increasingly native to this audience, gaming, with the aim of teaching young people how to budget, save and manage debt.

Research-backed gaming tool for financial literacy

Informal learning at scale reaching 15–17 year olds

Collaborative co-design process between youth & game studios

For Gen Z, learning is most effective when it’s experiential and low-stakes. While the "cost of living" is a high-pressure topic, a gaming environment offers a safe space to fail, iterate, and learn. We realized that to make financial education stick, we had to move from "teaching at" young people to "playing along" with them in an immersive world.

To ensure the game would reach the correct audience, youth expertise and marketing insights supported the collaborative co-design process from the beginning. We ran intensive workshop days with young people from NCS programs to understand the tone and mechanics that would keep them engaged.

Alongside PRELOADED, we developed Neohaven Noodles, a narrative-driven cooking game set in a near-future city where players strive to survive their first 10 days of business. We turned abstract concepts like "bad debt" and "interest rates" into tangible obstacles within a compelling story, requiring players to manage finances while meeting a host of interesting characters.

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The project proved that when you align youth-focused values with expert game design, you can deliver informal learning at scale. The game launched on the NCS website as a research-backed experience that facilitates learning in a way that suits young people’s digital habits. It successfully moved financial literacy from a dry, clinical curriculum subject to a culture-first experience that empowers young people to become world-and-work ready.

“ We are delighted to partner with PRELOADED and Livity to launch NCS’ first gaming experience. Through this research-backed experience, we can facilitate young people learning more about managing their finances in an environment that suits them. It has been a pleasure to work with partners that are not only experts in their field, but share our young person focused values. ”

Chris Brown - Director of Service Delivery, National Citizen Service Trust