Intertwined has five simulators plus two lighter options, Twine Town and the Arcade. They teach different things, run at different speeds, and come with different plans. This guide puts them side by side so you can pick the right one for the unit you're teaching, then points you to the full guide for each.

Good to know: every simulator is set up per class, from the Simulators tab inside a classroom. Each class keeps its own game, so a student in two of your classes has two separate runs.

Your whole class becomes one economy. Every student gets one of six roles: Renter / Employee, Landlord, Business Owner, Banker, Finance Minister or Regulator. Each round they make the decisions their role owns (setting rent, hiring, lending, taxing, enforcing the rules) and then live with what everyone else decided. Prices, wages and rents come out of what the class actually does.

You choose a starting scenario (from Stable Growth to the 2008 Financial Crisis or the Volcker Shock) and a pace: Sprint is 5 rounds over about a week, Standard is 8 rounds over about three weeks, and Deep is 12 rounds over about six weeks. You advance each round when the class is ready, set the Fed's interest rate, and can drop in shocks like a recession or a market crash.

Best for: economics and government units, or any class ready to talk about how one person's decision moves prices for everyone. It needs at least 6 students and works best with a full class. Stable Growth is the gentlest starting scenario for a first run or a younger class.

Plan: Intertwined Core, Plus and Pro. Read the Economy Simulator: teacher guide.

Each student lives through four stages of life, starting in high school, on the pay each stage brings. Rent and bills arrive on schedule, unexpected events land along the way, and their checking and savings balances, credit score, health and stress all move in response.

You set the difficulty, which scales what events cost, and can retune each life phase: how long it lasts, what it pays and how often, and what students start with in checking and savings. Students play at their own pace.

Best for: budgeting, needs versus wants, emergency funds, and the first conversation about credit. It's the most approachable simulator and a good first one for any class.

Plan: Intertwined Core, Plus and Pro. Read the Personal Budget Simulator: teacher guide.

Students start with a cash balance, research companies, and place buy and sell orders against real market prices, then follow their portfolio over the window you set. You can put students in groups, and a group shares one portfolio, so they have to agree before they trade.

You set the starting balance, the date range and daily trading hours, and whether margin, day trading and short selling are allowed.

Best for: risk and return, diversification, and the difference between a company's price and its value. It also makes a natural class competition.

Plan: Intertwined Plus and Pro. Read the Investing Simulator: teacher guide and Running an investing competition.

Each student founds a company and steers it through five stages, from a first idea to a growing business. Each turn brings a real decision on hiring, pricing, product or funding, and market value, revenue, profit and employee wellness move in response. A run is 25 decisions, 5 per stage, which takes about two or three class periods.

You set the difficulty, which decides how close the failure points sit to where students start, and can fine-tune each one.

Best for: entrepreneurship, equity and fundraising, and the lesson that a company can look profitable and still run out of cash.

Plan: Intertwined Pro. Read the Startup Simulator: teacher guide.

Every student runs their own café. They set prices, staff hours and stock for the next day, you run the day for the whole class, and then they watch it play out customer by customer and read their profit and loss and cash flow. You choose a run of 5, 10, 15 or 20 days and can schedule events like a street festival or a supply price spike.

Best for: pricing, fixed and variable costs, break-even, and why profit and cash are not the same number.

Plan: Intertwined Pro. Read the Business Simulator: teacher guide.

Twine Town runs alongside the Personal Finance Core Foundations (3e) course. Each section a student finishes counts as a paid work shift, and students decide what to do with the money in their town: where to live, what to drive, how to save and insure. It's on by default for classes using that course, and you can turn it off or back on from the Simulators tab. To grade it, you assign Twine Town checkpoints.

Best for: keeping money decisions running through the whole course instead of a single unit.

Plan: free on every plan, for classes that have the Core Foundations (3e) course. Read Twine Town: teacher guide.

Short games students can finish in a few minutes: spot a scam, race to make rent, manage your credit, then come back to beat their best. There's nothing to set up, and you can play the games yourself from Arcade in the sidebar. Arcade play belongs to the student's account rather than a class.

Best for: warm-ups, bell ringers, early finishers and review days.

Plan: free on every plan. Read The Arcade: teacher guide.

This is often the deciding question, because it changes what your class periods look like.

A padlock next to a simulator in the sidebar or in the classroom's simulator picker means your plan doesn't include it. Students never see plans or prices; if their class doesn't have a simulator, their Simulators page says their class doesn't include it right now. See Intertwined plans explained: Free, Solo, and school licenses and Trying a simulator free with a 14-day trial.

The Investing, Economy and Business simulators each have a student preview: the real student screens filled with sample data, so you can click around as a student would without setting anything up. See Previewing a simulator before your students do.

Yes. Each simulator is set up separately, so a class can have the Budget and Investing simulators running at the same time. What you can't do is run two copies of the same simulator in one class: to start an Economy or Business run over, you end or reset the current one first.

If you're new to Intertwined, the Personal Budget Simulator or the Arcade are the easiest starts: students work on their own and there's little to manage. Move to the Economy or Business simulators once you're comfortable running a class through rounds together.

Yes. Create a simulator assignment, and the Gradebook shows each student's simulator results and suggests a score. See Simulator scores in the Gradebook.

Students click Simulators in their sidebar. One page lists every simulator with their progress and anything you've assigned. Twine Town has its own sidebar link in classes using the Core Foundations (3e) course, unless you've switched it off. See The Simulators page.

No, but each class is separate. A student in two classes has a separate Budget game, portfolio, startup, café and economy seat in each, so progress in one doesn't carry to the other. Arcade play is the exception: it belongs to the student.