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INTERNSHIP | TD BANK
Treat Island: A Roblox game that turns financial learning into an adventure
Skills
Strategy, Research, Product Thinking, Workshop Facilitation, Concept Testing
Timeline
May - August 2024
Team
TD Bank | Design Strategists, UX Designers, Innovation Team
Context
86% of Canadian parents agreed that interactive games or animated videos that teach finances make learning more fun for kids. As virtual experiences are becoming more popular, they’re redefining how children learn.
TD Bank wants to develop a Roblox game experience that teaches financial concepts such as, earning, spending, saving, and borrowing through play.
🎯 Goal: Create a game concept that helps 10-14 year-olds learn financial responsibility through interactive,
story-driven gameplay.
Tl;dr
Where did I make an impact?
As an experience strategy intern at TD, I was able to add value in these areas of the project:
💡 Research
Synthesized research to identify patterns and pain points around parents teaching and youth engagement in financial literacy.
🎨 Concept Development
Created and visualized early concept storylines and art style directions, translating workshop insights into tangible narrative frameworks.
🧠 Workshop Facilitation
Planned and facilitated a Round Robin Brainstorming session by creating prompts, guiding transitions, and documenting key ideas.
📊 Storytelling
Designed a presentation that tied together research insights, game concepts, and business alignment, to help stakeholders see the potential of gamified learning.
Problem
🚀 How might we use play to spark youths’ interest in financial literacy concepts?
Parents are having a difficult time trying finding ways to teach fin lit concepts without it being intimidating or boring. We needed to transform complex financial lessons into a game world that feels natural, social, and empowering. The experience should ideally feel like something kids want to play, not something they have to learn.
Process
1.
Research & Discovery
Interview synthesis and pulling key insights
2.
Market Exploration
Competitive analysis of popular games among youth
3.
Ideation Workshop
How can we incorporate financial concepts into games
4.
Concept Development
Blending storytelling, strategy, financial education
Outcome
It’s LIVE!
The game, Treat Island Tycoon, is now on Roblox with over 37.8K visits. The future of the game will help TD’s ongoing exploration of youth-focused financial education, which was highlighted in this CTV News article.
Discovery
Understanding parent and youth needs
From previous interviews, focus groups, and surveys done by TD’s UX researchers, we had a lot of information to reference. I helped synthesize the research into key insights that helped inform the vision of this project.
💬 Key insights:
Parents want kids to grasp the value of money and the importance of saving early
Kids today learn best through interactive, gamified environments
Concepts like “borrowing” or “interest” are abstract without tangible examples
These findings grounded us in trying to build a game that teaches through doing, not telling.
Concept Development
Polishing up the ideas from the workshop
After the workshop, I refined the four game concepts, each combining storytelling, strategy, and financial education. We paired every concept with a distinct art style, character set, and potential storyline. When presented the four ideas, stakeholders were most drawn to Fantasy Popsicle Island, which later evolved into Treat Island Tycoon.
Cosmic Colonies
Fantasy Popsicle Island
Amusement Park Tycoon
Treasure Multiverse
Venture in space as an alien to establish a new colony on an uncharted planet.
A young entrepreneur dreams of building a popsicle empire on the fantasy island.
Explore new islands, search for rare ingredients, create their own unique popsicles! Help other shop merchants and eventually work your way to being a shop owner
Inherit an old, small, and almost-out-of-business amusement park.
Embark on a journey of exploring a multiverse of fantastical dimensions.
There are a few rusty roller coasters, carnival-style games, and a concession stand. They are equipped with some coins and hand-me-down tools to help get them started.
Uncover hidden treasures within these worlds (Waterworld, Candy Land, Rocky Island, Cloud World)
Dimensional Guardians advise the players to effectively collect resources, earn currency, and manage their assets. Provides wisdom on saving, budgeting, and environmental care
Meet planet guardians along the journey inhabiting different planets, managing minigames/challenges, providing rewards, offering trades
Learnings
🤝 Collaboration drove the creative success of this project
During the workshop, I witnessed how diverse perspectives can elevate an idea beyond what one person could alone. As participants built on each other’s storylines, the concepts grew richer, adding unique characters, power-ups, and engaging narratives.
The final game direction would not have reached its full potential without contributions from researchers, business stakeholders, the innovation team, and our own internal ideation sessions. This experience taught me that there is so much value in collaboration and workshops. It’s not just a step in the process, but was able to transform early ideas into something meaningful and engaging.
Market Exploration
What’s currently on the market?
Another intern and I conducted research to explore the landscape of existing fin lit games. We also examined games across various genres, such as social simulation (Animal Crossing), role-playing (Stardew Valley), tycoon (Pancake Empire), sports simulation (FIFA 23), and more. It was important to know what kinds of money systems children are exposed to beyond traditional fin lit games.
Our goal was to uncover strategies that could make financial learning feel more natural and engaging. We shared these insights ahead of the ideation workshop to help participants build ideas grounded in real gaming experiences.
Role-playing
Social Simulation
Sports Simulation
Tycoon
Pet Simulation
Financial Literacy
Ideation Workshop
Where the story starts to take shape
To co-create possible directions, we facilitated a collaborative "Round Robin" workshop with business stakeholders, designers, researchers, and the innovation team. At the start of the workshop, our team presented our research insights and market explorations to help guide participants.
🧩 Workshop Format:
4 breakout groups focused on one topic each: Earning, Spending, Saving, Borrowing
Every 10 minutes, participants switched tables and built upon another group’s storyline
By the end, we had a dynamic mix of perspectives and ideas that evolved through iteration
💬 What we observed:
People built on each other’s ideas in unexpected ways, creating richer narratives
People made personal connections to learning finance via games (e.g. saving for a goal, managing rewards)
Collaborative energy helped us diverge before converging by seeing what ideas resonated most participants
Our team grouped similar ideas into larger buckets that then helped us with our vision during concept development.
Earning
Spending
Saving
Borrowing
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