Twine Town is a personal finance life sim woven through the Personal Finance Core Foundations (3e) course. Every section a student finishes counts as a paid work shift, and they decide what to do with the money: where to live, how to get to work, how much to save, whether to buy insurance. Their choices show up in a quality-of-life score, so students feel the trade-offs the course is teaching instead of only reading about them.
Available on: every plan, including Free, for classes that use Personal Finance Core Foundations (3e). Grading checkpoints in the Gradebook needs Intertwined Solo or a school plan.
When students see Twine Town
Twine Town is on by default for every class that uses Personal Finance Core Foundations (3e). There's nothing for you or your students to set up. Students in those classes see Twine Town in their sidebar, right under Simulators.
It only works with the 3e course. A class using another course doesn't get Twine Town, and its Setup page says the class needs Core Foundations (3e) first. You can turn Twine Town off for any class, and back on again, whenever you like.
How it ties to the course
Twine Town runs on course progress, not on time spent in the town. Students earn money by doing the course.
Every section is a week of work. A section counts once all of its lessons and its quiz are done. All 135 sections pay.
Payday comes every two sections, and bills are due every four sections (the end of a month).
A first-try quiz score of 80% or better adds a T$25 bonus to that section's shift. It's paid once per section.
Raises come as students reach Units 4, 7, 10 and 13.
New places open as the course reaches them. The Credit office opens after 2.10, automatic savings at the Bank after 5.4, the full paystub after 6.3, and the Insurance office after 9.1. If your class skips one of those sections, a later unit opens what it would have.
An accident, later in the course. Finishing one particular section brings an accident that students have to pay for, with a few ways to pay. Students are never told ahead of time. Setup > How it works names the section, so you can plan a debrief around it.
Money is in Twine dollars (T$), and the prices, pay and insurance terms are simplified examples. How it works in Setup shows the exact pay at each stage and the take-home amount after taxes.
If you've locked units with Manage Access, Twine Town's "Up next" card skips the locked sections, so it never sends a student somewhere they can't open.
Where students run into it
The Twine Town page in their sidebar, where they make all their choices.
A Twine Town tile on their dashboard with their quality of life, checking balance, money left each month, and when the next payday and bills come.
A card on the course page with their quality of life and an Open Twine Town link.
A strip on the quiz finish screen, like "Shift logged in Twine Town", that tells them when payday is.
Turn Twine Town off or on for a class
Go to Classrooms > your class > Simulators.
In the Simulator menu on the right, choose Twine Town (it's last in the list).
Open Setup.
Click Turn off or Turn on.
When it's off, students lose the sidebar link and the dashboard, course and quiz touches, but their towns are kept. Sections they finish in the meantime still pay when you turn it back on, so nobody starts behind. While it's off, the Class view shows a preview of where everyone would stand.
What students do in town
Students start in their family home, riding the bus, with a little money in checking and savings. The town map is a winding road with their home first, then the Bank, Housing office, Car lot, Shops, Credit and Insurance office. A Brokerage lot is on the map but fenced off as coming in a later release.
Housing: move from the family home to a shared apartment, a studio or a 1-bedroom. Nicer homes raise the Home score but cost more each month, plus a move-in cost.
Getting to work: keep the bus pass or buy a used car, which adds a loan, gas and insurance.
Shops: choose a monthly fun budget.
Bank: move money between checking and savings, and turn on automatic savings once it opens.
Credit and Insurance: pay down a card balance, pick a health plan and choose car coverage.
Quality of life is a score out of 100 made from five parts: Home, Ride, Security (savings and health coverage), Freedom (money left over each month, minus debt) and Fun. Money sitting in checking doesn't raise it on its own, so students have to decide what their pay is for. Bills come out of checking at the end of each month, and a student who doesn't keep enough there pays an overdraft fee. The full student guide is Twine Town: how to play.
What you can see
The Class view
Open Class on the Twine Town tab for the whole class at a glance:
Tiles for Sections paid, on average, Average quality of life, how many students Owe money, and how many have an Accident waiting (they haven't chosen how to pay yet).
A table with each student's Sections paid, Quality of life, Net worth, Owed, Accident status and Last decision. Accident status reads Not reached, Waiting on them or Paid.
Click a student's name to open their town.
The Students view
Pick a student to see their town the way they see it, read-only: the map, their Sections paid, Quality of life, Net worth and Owed, their recent activity, and every decision they've made, by week. You can sort the student list by Name, Quality of life or Sections paid.
The class leaderboard (what students see)
On their Twine Town page, students see Your class, a list of classmates ranked by quality of life. It shows first name and last initial only, lists only classmates who have opened Twine Town, and shows the top 10 plus the student's own row. It ranks quality of life, not money, and students never see each other's towns. There isn't a separate setting to hide the leaderboard, so if rankings are a sensitive topic in your room, it's worth framing them before students find it.
Give the class goals with checkpoints
A checkpoint is a small goal in each student's town, like turning on automatic savings. The town marks it done on its own, and it can count in the Gradebook like a simulator assignment.
On the Twine Town Class view, click Assign a checkpoint. (Or open Create Assignment and choose Twine Town checkpoint. It only appears for a class that uses 3e with Twine Town on.)
Under Which checkpoint?, pick one of the five goals below.
Check Worth (10 points to start), choose who gets it, and set the due date. It starts a week out, due at 11:59 PM.
Turn on autosave: done when automatic savings is on at the Bank. Opens after 5.4.
Save a month of bills: done when savings cover a month of that student's costs. Open from the start.
Keep your credit card paid off: done when they owe nothing on the card. It opens only after a student has paid for the accident, so set the due date after your class reaches it (Create Assignment names the section).
Move into your own place: done when the student rents a shared apartment or better. Open from the start.
Pick health coverage: done once a month's bills have paid for a health plan. Opens after 9.1.
Students see checkpoints at the top of their town under From your teacher, with a button that takes them to the right place. A checkpoint is done the first time a student's town meets it, and it stays done even if they undo it later. In the Gradebook, a student who met it by the due date gets a full suggested score, and anyone else gets zero suggested. You confirm or change every score. See Simulator scores in the Gradebook.
Start one student over
Students can't restart their own town. If a student wants a fresh start, or their town went somewhere you'd like them to redo:
Open the Students view on the Twine Town tab and pick the student.
Click Reset [name]'s town (the button shows the student's full name).
Read the note that appears, then click Yes, reset [name] to confirm.
They start over in the family home with the starting money. Every section they've already finished pays again on their next visit, so they keep the pay they earned but lose their choices. Their old records are kept.
Tips
Early on, have students open the Housing office and compare what each home leaves them each month before anyone moves. Seeing Home go up while Freedom drops starts a good conversation about rent.
Scan the Last decision column before class. It's a quick way to find students to call on ("Why did you buy the car?").
Plan a debrief for the accident. Compare how students with and without insurance came out, without naming anyone.
Use checkpoints sparingly and tie each one to the lesson that teaches it, like Turn on autosave during the emergency fund unit.
Remind students that the course is the only way to earn. Finishing sections, and doing well on quizzes the first time, is what pays.
Common questions
My class doesn't see Twine Town. Why?
Check that the class uses Personal Finance Core Foundations (3e) and that Twine Town is on in Setup. Students also need to be signed in as students; teachers don't have a town.
A student finished a section but didn't get paid.
A section pays only when every lesson and its quiz are done. If a lesson is still open, the quiz finish screen tells the student to finish the section's lessons to log the shift.
What about a student in two classes that both use 3e?
They have a separate town for each class, and a Class menu at the top of their Twine Town page switches between them.
Does Twine Town affect grades?
Only through checkpoints you assign. Nothing else in the town goes into the Gradebook.
Can a student go broke?
They can overdraw checking and pay a fee, or carry a card balance, but setbacks are recoverable. Pay keeps coming as long as they keep doing the course.