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.

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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