Cashflow 101 E-game – Click for our comprehensive review | Click to buy

Pros

1. No fumbling with pencils and erasers
2. No calculators necessary
3. Play with computers when you can’t find any friends to play with
4. Animated characters to keep you entertained
5. Play over the internet with players from all around the world

Cons

1. Can’t create your own rules
2. Repetitive animation and endless clicking
3. Only limited to auction and sales of deals to other players
4. No local area network gaming available, play on same computer with different players if you decide not to opt for the internet multi-playing subscription
5. Not given a choice of whether to stay in the rat race

Cashflow Board Game – Click for our comprehensive review | Click to buy

Pros

1. Extremely flexible because you can create your own rules to increase difficulty
2. You learn faster with human interaction
3. Network with same-minded people
4. Unlimited ways to create or sell deals, e.g. offering a player a loan with interest less than the bank’s thus getting a passive income from the interest
5. You can choose to play the rat race longer

Cons

1. Have to juggle between calculator, pencil and dice within the timeframe given

Still can’t decide?
Most of the time, I advise people to buy the e-game and go for cashflow circles/gatherings instead. When you are alone, you still have your e-game… when you want to network with different people, you can just attend a cashflow gathering in your area. E-game is not only cheaper but also teaches the most basic rules effectively.

Cashflow 101 E-game is the pc game version of the popular financial education board game, Cashflow 101. To those of you who are unfamiliar with who Robert Kiyosaki is, he is the author of the best-selling book: Rich Dad, Poor Dad. The objective of Cashflow 101 E-game is to get out of the rat race and into the fast track to achieve your dream, that is, to achieve financial freedom. As a person who has never played the real Cashflow board game before, I find the digital/software version pretty interesting and quite addictive. At first impression, the e-game was amazing in graphics but needs more improvements in the background music and game options.

Visit the Rich Dad store to see customer reviews of Cashflow 101 E-game or get info on the real cashflow board game.

Throughout your journey to achieve your dream, there will be two characters accompanying you. They are Red E. Rat (RR) and Timid T. Turtle (TT), RR serves as your mentor (Voice by Robert Kiyosaki himself) and TT is pretty much a newbie in financial literacy. Sometimes during the game, TT will ask RR questions about bank loans, brokers, etc and RR will answer them from a Rich Dad point of view. Both TT and RR will react to the choices you make (for e.g. if you made a good buy, RR or TT will give a thumbs up!). Furthermore, you’ll be required to fill in your financial statements (balance sheet and income statement) with the right items, so as to get you familiar with balancing your cashflow accounts and differentiating assets from liabilities. In this computer version, it’s an easy click-and-drag of the items to financial statements. I heard from cashflow board game players that playing the board game is more "tedious" but it provides a better learning experience because you do your own calculations and fill in your cashflow statement with a good ol’ pencil.

At the main menu, you will be given an option whether you want to play in single player, multiplayer or hot-seat multi-player mode. Hot-seat multiplayer means you can play with more than 1 player on your own computer. As for the multiplayer mode, a subscription is necessary to play over the internet.

The game also allows you to have access to all of Robert’s videos, it can also be watched during the game when you need help. I find this a bonus as the videos are conducted by Robert Kiyosaki himself.

Before the game starts, you will be given a random profession. You can be a lawyer, k-12 teacher, etc. Each profession has different salary, expenses and debts when you start the game, giving different playing experiences. A lawyer has a higher salary, but more expensive education loans to pay off, more expensive car & house loans, etc.

The Rat Race
At the rat race, there will be these squares:

Opportunities

When a player lands on this square, the player will be given a choice of “Big Deal” and “Small Deal”. The small deals are less than $5,000 – Certificate of Deposits, stocks, small residential houses, etc. The big deals exceeds $5000 and includes deals for apartments, plexes, businesses, etc.

Paycheck
When a player steps on or crosses this square, the player will receive a pay check/ net monthly income

Downsize
The player will have to pay an amount equal to the total expenses and lose 3 turns.

Baby
Your monthly expenses will increase because you have to feed your new baby. Baby expenses depends on which profession you have.

Doodad
These are mostly one-off expenses which are small unnecessary/luxury items we buy (watches, fancy dinner) to big items which requires loans like boats.

Market
In this square, you’ll know that a buyer is looking for properties or business. You get to sell your property or business if it matches the card.

Charity
In the rat race, you can only roll one dice. Unless you donate 10% of your income to charity, you get to roll up to two dices

Once your passive income exceeds your expenses, then you shall
proceed to the fast track. Although this sounds very easy when I first started, I lost about 4 times before I was able to finally reach the fast track.

The Fast Track

Your income in fast track is nothing like the income you get in the rat race, your income will be in hundred thousands. I find the fast track too… well, too easy. You’ll never need a loan in the fast track. Except for losing all the cash and unable to purchase anything, it doesn’t really matter at all because you’ll eventually get back your monthly income. The deals in the fast track are, of course, higher in price. You’ll be buying franchises, IPOs, etc, etc. Most of the time, the FIRST person who reaches the fast track will also be the FIRST to win the whole race… except in some rare cases that the first person keeps losing money and can’t buy his dream or assets which generate passive income. On the fast track, the winner is determined based on how fast you are able to buy your dream or get $50,000 in passive income.

Rants

Although the game has its educational values, being a person who enjoys playing computer games I have to criticize on some of the game options aspects. Personally, I find it annnoying to have to click “ok” everytime the computer players draw a card or rolls the dice. Also, the animation (like rat walking on the board after dice is thrown) is repetitive, I’d like to have the option to turn it off. At the end of the game, the top 3 winners are shown with their respective scores, and I have no idea how these scores are calculated!

Wish list

Here’s my wish list:
- A choice to turn off the TT and RR characters.
- Choice to turn off the animation of the rat walking on the
board everytime the dice is thrown
- Option to disable the need for me to click “ok” everytime a computer player rolls the dice or draws a card
- More conversation dialogues between TT and RR
- More variety of background music

Overall Conclusion
So did Cashflow 101 E-game teach me a lesson in financial education? It sure did! I didn’t mind taking out a loan to finance my real estate as long as it gave positive cashflow. I grunge when I step on the “downsize” square, NOT because I have to pay an amount equal to my expenses, but because I won’t have the chance to step on any “opportunity” squares to increase my passive income for 3 whole rounds! After playing the game a few times, I wasn’t worried about the amount of money I have and I easily build my passive income through good debt. However, I think the real Cashflow board game is more flexible because players can make up their own rules to add more "real-world" situations in the game, I guess this is what the cashflow 101 e-game is lacking. But Cashflow 101 E-game is great for beginners, furthermore it is cheaper than the Cashflow board game and you can with computer players when you are alone.

Visit the website to see customer reviews of Cashflow 101 E-game or get info on the cashflow board game.

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A year has gone by since the introduction of cashflow 101 e-game, and the long awaited Cashflow 202 e-game has finally been released. Cashflow 202 e-game takes you to the next step of financial skills, it teaches you the advanced skills of technical investing – make money even when the market is going down with stock and real estate options and short selling.

You need to have Cashflow 101 e-game in order to play cashflow 202 e-game, if you don’t have Cashflow 101 e-game.. read that review here

Visit the Rich Dad store to see customer reviews of Cashflow 202 E-game or get info on the real cashflow board game.

Okay, enough with the introduction… on with the review.

Installation part was a bit confusing, but this won’t happen to you if you read this review.
When I popped the disc into my computer, the auto-play screen came up with a default installation directory which I assumed to be correct.

However, after the installation, I was unable to run cashflow 202 e-game! Why? Because it’s suppose to be installed in the same directory as 101!

Note: I received my copy of cashflow 202 when it was only sold to richdad Insiders, I hope this problem is fixed when it’s sold to the public.

The introduction movie follows the same style as cashflow 101, great animation/graphics but virtually no background music. The movie, however, does a good job telling us that it’s for experienced cashflow 101 gamers (Mr. rat (that’s us) complained to Timid T. Turtle that he needed more adventure after getting out of the rat race.

Now for the Interesting Part, The Game

202 introduces a new character, Mr. Weasel. He’s sleezy, slimy and cunning but like all cashflow characters, he is adorable. Cashflow 202 e-game is definitely harder, I went bankrupt in a few minutes the first I played it. If you are a regular player of cashflow 101, you can easily guess the next stock price. My circle of cashflow friends always lend money to buy stocks at low, low prices then they’d wait and hold till the highest price comes up. Good thing is… you can’t do that in Cashflow 202. The stock price is random! And sometimes the company stock you buy may go bankrupt,
playing 202 can give me heart-attack sometimes.

Changes in Cashflow 202
The backdrop and background music has changed to a much jazzy-feel to it. Cashflow 202 doesn’t use the term “big deals” and “small deals” anymore, it is changed to “cashflow”; and “capital gain”.

More significant changes:
Options & short selling
202 introduces puts and call options, real estate options and short-selling. I’ve studied these in theory when studying in college, it was pretty boring calculating them in classes but fun and interesting when applying them in practice on cashflow 202.

Real-time Stock Ticker
Check the charts for stocks you bought and sell it anytime you want.

Player Financial Statement
Instead of starting the game with different salary, players also start with different debts and assets. Don’t be suprised to find out that you already hold some amount of stocks.

Doodads
Furthermore doodads aren’t one-off expenses like in 101, most of the doodads in 202 require you to add to your monthly expenses (Ouch!).

Conclusion
Although for some minor bugs in the installation part, Cashflow 202 e-game is a great game at teaching personal finance, if you think that 202 doesn’t make any significant improvements to Cashflow 101.. then you are very wrong. If you are a seasoned player of cashflow 101 e-game, then you really should get this. 101 is boring compared to 202.

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