It is called "Your aunt's Raya sales pitch". It can turn up any time after the first year of a life. In the Malaysia edition it opens like this, word for word:

Between the rendang and the money packets, your aunt, who has just become an insurance agent, corners you. She offers a special family rate if you sign today. The form is already out.

And here are the three choices, also word for word:

• "Take the brochure home and read it first."
• "Sign now so she does not lose face."
• "Say maybe later and dodge her all day."

Why this card exists

A lot of people know this moment. A festival visit, good food, the whole family in one room, and a relative with a new job and a form in her bag. The relative is usually not a bad person. She is often new at the job, she has targets, and family is the easiest place to start.

That is what makes the moment hard. The money question is simple: do I need this cover, and is this the right policy? But the table is not a simple place. There is love, there is face, there is an audience, and there is a pen already in your hand.

So this is a card where the hard part is not the maths. It is saying "let me read it first" to someone you love.

What each choice does in the game

Take the brochure home and read it first. This is the choice the game scores highest. In the story, you read it at home, calm. It turns out to be a decent medical plan with some pricey extras bundled on top. You drop the extras and buy the part you need. The lesson line: cover you need is worth buying, just never at the table.

Sign now so she does not lose face. This one costs you. In the story, a RM 180 monthly premium starts, and half of it is investment padding you would never have picked. Cancelling now means an awkward talk with your aunt. In the game, you pay RM 180, your score drops and your stress goes up a little. The lesson line: buying to spare someone's feelings is how the wrong policy gets sold. A good agent is happy for you to read it later, family or not.

Say maybe later and dodge her all day. This one feels like a win. You get a little joy for escaping, and no money leaves the bank. But the score still drops. In the story, "later" turns into "never", and you stay with no medical cover at all. The lesson line: dodging a pushy pitch is smart, dodging cover altogether is not. The pitch was wrong, but a medical card is a real need.

So the card does not say "insurance is bad" or "your aunt is a crook". The way it was sold was wrong. The thing being sold might still be something you need. The best answer takes both seriously.

The card is fiction

The aunt, the policy, the RM 180 and every other number in DECADES are made up. The card is a story about a moment, not a review of any real product, agent or company. Nothing in this post is advice about your own money or your own cover.

Where to check the real rules

The real rules are on official pages:

• Bank Negara Malaysia looks after insurance and takaful in Malaysia. Its insurance and takaful page is the starting point. You can check whether a company is licensed on its list of licensed financial institutions.
• Bank Negara's guidelines on medical and health insurance set a minimum 15-day "free-look" period for new policies, a window to read a policy and decide if it suits you. Check what your own policy says.
• To ask a question or make a complaint about a financial service, Bank Negara has an enquiries and complaints page.
• PIDM, Malaysia's deposit insurance body, explains how your insurance and takaful benefits are protected if an insurer fails, on its Takaful and Insurance Benefits Protection System page.
• AKPK, the credit counselling agency set up by Bank Negara, offers free money counselling if premiums and other bills are getting too heavy: akpk.org.my.

Play it

Not every life meets the aunt. The International edition tells the same story at a holiday dinner, in dollars. Play DECADES in your browser, free and with no sign-up, and see which answer you give when the form is already out.

Here is what they ended up with, and what that does and does not tell you.

The setup

Every bot starts the same way. RM 2,600 in the bank. A job that pays RM 3,000 a month. The game's normal living costs and bills.

Each life has a seed, a number that decides its luck: pay rises, layoffs, a bad month at the clinic. The three bots play the same thousand seeds, so most of the gap between them comes from what they did, not from the dice.

If a bot loses its job, it finds a new one after four months, at 90% of the old pay.

The bots never read a card. Each follows one fixed rule every month, which shows what a single habit does over ten years.

The three bots

The Saver spends nothing it does not have to. No trips, no gym, no insurance, no treats. Every spare ringgit stays in the bank.

The Baller buys everything in the game's shop it can afford: a nicer room, pets, a console, a used car, meal delivery, even insurance and a gym. Many of those come with a monthly cost that never stops. It takes a trip whenever it has more than RM 4,000. It keeps paying for spa days, concerts and massages whenever it has the cash, even when the cash is thin.

The Balanced bot buys medical cover first. It joins a gym once it has more than RM 5,000. When its stress climbs past 55 out of 100, it pays for therapy. Once a year, if it has more than RM 12,000, it takes a trip.

What happened

Here is the median net worth after ten years. The median is the middle life: half of the thousand did better, half did worse.

• The Saver: RM 156,072
• The Balanced bot: RM 146,592
• The Baller: minus RM 133,441

On money alone, the Saver comes first, about RM 9,500 ahead of the Balanced bot. The Baller ends deep in debt.

But DECADES does not grade a life on money alone. The score counts your net worth, counts your debt against you a second time, and adds or takes away points for how happy and how healthy the life was. On that score, the order changes:

• The Balanced bot: 1,600
• The Saver: 1,168
• The Baller: minus 4,419

One more number changes the story. Out of 1,000 lives, 311 of the Saver's ended before the ten years were up. The Balanced bot lost none. The Baller lost 3.

In DECADES, the body sends a warning before it gives out, when health or stress crosses a line. The Saver never pays for a gym, therapy or cover, so nothing ever answers the warning.

Two more bots, and a harder start

Two more bots start with high stress, 60 out of 100. The first three start at 12.

One works overtime every month: RM 500 extra, and 8 more points of stress, every month. The other pays for therapy and medical cover and works normal hours.

We ran 200 lives of each. All 200 of the overworked lives ended early. On average they lasted 23.8 months, just under two years. The paced lives lasted 119.3 months on average, out of a possible 120.

So the extra RM 500 a month bought, on average, less than two years of life.

What this means

It means the game works the way we meant it to. Saving hard pays in money. Spending everything costs you twice, once in the bank and once in the score. And running yourself into the ground is the most expensive habit of all.

This simulation is also a check. It runs whenever we change the rules for money, health or the score. If the Saver or the Baller ever beats the Balanced bot on score, or if the overworked bot stops dying younger than the paced one, the check fails, and the change does not go in until the game is fixed.

What it does not mean

This is a simulation of a game, not of Malaysia. The prices, the pay, the health rules and the odds are the game's own. They are invented, and they are tuned so that a life is worth playing. No real body runs on a rule with a number in it.

The bots are also far simpler than people. They never read a card, change jobs on purpose, study, invest, marry or move house.

And ten years is short. The bots stop at 28, so things like EPF at 55 never come up.

So please do not read this as advice about your own money. It is a look at how we test a game.

Try it yourself

Live one life as the Saver and one as the Baller, then put the two final ledgers side by side. Play DECADES in your browser, free and with no sign-up.

Teachers will find a 40-minute lesson for a whole class on the teachers page.