You’ve got a pot of wealth and a Grim Reaper on the way. Draw the highest income you can, keep your standard of living steady, and don’t run out of money before he arrives. A retirement-income game that teaches how risk, inflation and timing really work.
Android only.
Anyone can take a big income for a few years. The hard part is taking a big income that lasts, and doesn’t shrink in real terms while it does.
Take the highest income you can from your wealth. Leaving a fortune behind is how you lose.
Spend too fast and you’ll end up on Skid Row, with the Grim Reaper still years away.
Prices rise every year. Your income should too, so your standard of living doesn’t quietly fall.
Every turn is a year of your retirement. You set the income, choose the risk, press Go, then live with the result.
Your tombstone shows your age, how much is invested, and how much you’ve withdrawn so far. Open Your History to review your investment, performance and income over the years.
Slide to the income you want to take. After the first year you’ll see last year’s inflation and can tick Adjust for Inflation to raise your income in step with the cost of living.
Wild swings in income hurt your standard of living, so steady beats spectacular.
Six places to put your money, from Speculative down to Cash. Move the sliders to set your mix. The risk dial and the portfolio pie update as you go.
Higher expected returns pay for a bigger income, but they bring bigger losses too. Hold some cash if you expect a rough year.
Hit Go! and Igor brews up the year’s market. Nobody knows what’s in there, and that’s the point.
Each of the six funds gets its return for the year, good or bad. Your investment’s new worth sits at the top.
Last year’s balance, your portfolio’s performance, your income, your total withdrawals, current inflation and your age. Then take your next turn, until the Grim Reaper turns up.
After your first year, Igor offers a market outlook for each fund. It’s useful, but forecasts are never fully reliable, in the game or in life. Tap a fund to see how to read it.
Figures are from one sample turn in the game. Every game is different.
Is the fund cheap or expensive right now? Above 100 means expensive, usually after a strong run. The further above 100, the pricier it is, and the less likely (though never impossible) that returns will be good. Well below 100 means cheap.
Igor’s estimate of next year’s return, based on the FVI. It’s a handy guide to how much income you can safely take. A higher implied return means less of your capital gets used up.
▲ Green up means returns are likely to be better than last year. ▼ Red down means the opposite.
One sample year from the game: a good one for the riskier funds. Another year could just as easily go the other way. Look at the order of the tiles, not just the numbers: riskier funds swing further.
When your game ends you’ll find out whether you’ve completed any of the four challenges. They’re about surviving into old age, avoiding big changes to your income, and using up most of your wealth before the Reaper shows up.
Your income doesn’t have to keep pace with inflation, so your standard of living may slip. But it mustn’t slip too far.
Here your income has to rise in line with the cost of living, year after year, while you still manage the money.
Leaderboard. If you don’t run out of money, you can add your score. It ranks the players who drew the most income before the Grim Reaper arrived.
Everything you wrestle with in Rigor Mortis is a real retirement question. Here’s the thinking behind the controls.
Shares in companies. Global equity funds spread your money across many companies and countries. Over long periods they have tended to give the highest returns of the main asset types.
The price you pay is volatility. Share prices can fall by a third or more in a bad stretch, and recovery can take years. That matters more when you’re already taking money out.
A bond is a loan to a government or company that pays interest. Government bonds usually swing less than shares, and cash is steadier still. In the game, the safer funds behave this way too.
But safer isn’t free. Low returns can lag behind inflation, and bond prices can fall when interest rates rise. A cash buffer is handy for the short term, and a weak plan for 30 years.
Two retirees can average exactly the same return and end up in very different places. If the bad years come first, you sell more investments to pay your income, and there’s less left to recover when the good years arrive.
That’s why the game keeps asking whether you’re taking too much, too soon. Igor’s outlook helps you spot years where a cash cushion could be worth having.
Inflation is the rise in prices over time. An income that stays the same buys less every year, so the game asks you whether to raise yours to match.
Raising it keeps your lifestyle steady, but it takes more from your pot. That’s the tension at the heart of the game.
A well-known guideline, the “4% rule”, says you could take about 4% of your starting pot in year one, then raise it with inflation each year, and have a good chance of lasting around 30 years. It came from US historical data and is only a starting point.
The game lets you test your own judgement, and find out what happens when markets don’t behave.
Taking money out of your investments to live on, rather than buying an annuity that pays a fixed income for life. It’s flexible, but you carry the investment risk.
A broad type of investment, such as shares, bonds or cash. In the game, your six funds sit on a ladder from Cash to Speculative.
How much the value of an investment bounces around. High volatility doesn’t mean a permanent loss, but when you’re drawing income it can force you to sell at a bad moment.
Spreading money across different investments so they’re unlikely to all fall together. It’s one of the few ways to reduce risk without necessarily giving up expected return.
The return after taking inflation off. If your fund gains 5% and prices rise 2%, your real return is roughly 3%.
Igor’s name for running out of money. Avoid it.
Take the pot, pick your risk and see how long your money lasts.
Get it on Google Play