LifeMaxxing

A brainrotted app that financially educates you.

Let's be real. You're broke, you're stressed, and the economy isn't getting any better. But here's the twist: you can still make it out of this brainrot and actually improve your financial situation.

Because looksmaxxing? Yeah, that’s probably not happening anytime soon. But financial education? That's within your grasp, my friend.

LifeMaxxing is here to rescue you from the cycle of doom-scrolling, because let’s face it, if you’re already spending your time getting brainrot, you might as well get a little smarter while you're at it.

INSPIRATION LifeMaxxing was born out of the chaos of a brainrot generation. We’re living in an age where we spend hours scrolling through meaningless content, but what if we could make that time work for us? Instead of mindlessly consuming, why not get educated—financially educated? The inspiration came from the reality that looksmaxxing might not be in the cards, but we can always work on becoming smarter with our money, even if it feels like we’re stuck in the financial trenches.

WHAT IT DOES LifeMaxxing is a mobile app that combines financial education with fun gameplay. You play as a character who must fight off a variety of monsters, and in order to protect yourself, you can purchase different types of insurance—each one offering unique benefits and protections.

The goal is to teach players about the importance of various insurance plans in a fun and interactive way. As you progress through the game, you’ll learn how each insurance type can shield you from financial pitfalls, just like how in real life, insurance can protect you from unexpected events. Whether it’s home insurance to defend against damage, health insurance to recover from injuries, or life insurance to ensure your legacy, LifeMaxxing shows you that insurance isn’t just a boring necessity—it’s an essential tool for life’s unpredictable journey.

By battling monsters and making strategic insurance choices, players not only learn how these protections work but also gain the skills to make smarter financial decisions in their own lives.

HOW WE BUILT IT The game was built entirely in Unity, with C# handling all game logic, physics interactions, and UI elements.

We used Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) principles to create modular scripts for inventory management, player health, and enemy behavior. Furthermore, we implemented scriptable objects to store insurance data, making it easy to add new policies dynamically.

In addition, we:

• Used Unity’s Rigidbody system to handle player movement, collisions, and physics-based interactions. Implemented raycasting for attack detection and enemy hitboxes.
• Used Unity’s UI system (TextMeshPro, Canvas, Panels) to display tooltips and explain how each insurance type works.
• Implemented a smooth scene transition system using EasyTransition for a polished experience.

CHALLENGES

• Merge conflicts. With multiple people working on the game, we ran into Git merge conflicts—especially when modifying Unity scenes. Since Unity stores scenes and prefabs as large serialized files, merging changes was tricky. We had to coordinate edits and use Git carefully to avoid losing progress.
• Unity’s independence from other platforms. Unlike web-based or backend-heavy projects, Unity development is highly self-contained. This meant less external debugging tools and more reliance on - Unity’s internal systems. Compatibility with external plugins was sometimes difficult.
• Balancing fun and education. We didn’t want the game to feel like a lecture.
• Implementing a fully functional inventory system that tracks insurance purchases.
• Handling physics-based interactions, ensuring realistic knockbacks and damage mechanics.
• Scene transitions and UI interactions, ensuring smooth pop-ups, menus, and game logic.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS We were able to get a lot of the game mechanics to work, despite the challenges of learning Unity on the go. Only one member of our team had prior Unity experience, so for most of us, this was a brand-new learning experience. It was amazing to see how everyone contributed in different ways, picking up new skills in C#, Unity physics, and game design along the way.

WHAT WE LEARNED

• We gained a deeper understanding of business and marketing, especially how to position a product to make it both engaging and educational.
• We learned a lot about game development, from C# scripting to Unity’s physics engine and scene management.
• Working as a team in a collaborative coding environment taught us how to manage merge conflicts and structure a Unity project efficiently.
• We discovered the challenges of balancing fun gameplay with an educational purpose, making sure the game was both entertaining and informative.

WHATS NEXT

• Expanding insurance types to cover more real-world scenarios and make the game even more engaging.
• Introducing more financial education concepts, such as budgeting, investing, and risk management, to deepen players' understanding.
• AI-driven level generation, allowing for dynamic difficulty adjustments based on player performance.
• Personalized gameplay by collecting player data (ethically!) to tailor levels, challenges, and financial lessons to individual users.
• Exploring monetization strategies, such as partnerships with financial institutions, in-game rewards tied to real-life learning incentives, and premium educational content.

Built With

• c#
• unity