About six weeks ago, my son suggested I make a money counting memory game. I figured that this was a great idea, so I started work on it straight away. One difficulty about making a money memory game is that there are so many different currencies used in the world! Which should I put into the game?
In the end, I wrote the game so that the user has a choice of currency. The “default” choice is United States currency, simply because the majority of the site’s visitors are from the States. Other currencies available are British Pounds, the Euro, and Singapore Dollars.
I know there are some obvious questions about these choices. Why not include Australian dollars? Canadian dollars? And.. err.. why Singapore dollars when only about 1% of my visitors come from the Island Republic?
The simple reason is this. When I look at the websites of the Australian or Canadian mint, I get the feeling that they’d insist I ask permission before I use pictures of their coins. So I asked permission, but so far, silence is the only reply. This is disappointing for me, because it means I have to disappoint my Aussie and Canadian visitors. On the other hand, the Monetary Authority of Singapore has a page on their site, which clearly explains that for a free educational game like this one, permission is freely granted, with no need to ask.
Finally I decided I’d announce the game, even though it doesn’t yet have all the currencies I’d like it to. In the meantime, I have a half-formed plan to get more and more currencies into the game as the months go by… so stay tuned!
Yours,
Mike H…
PS – don’t forget, there’s still about 2 weeks before the Big Numbers Competition closes!