GameLog Page

Please sign in or sign up!

...blogs for gamers

Find a GameLog

... by game	... by platform

[ advanced search ]

HOME	GAMES	LOGS	MEMBERS			ABOUT	HELP

dkirschner's Trolley Problem, Inc. (PC)

[July 8, 2023 05:49:34 PM]

Novel premise for a game. It's a series of ethical dilemmas, some classic, some newer, some modern wrappings of very old problems. It's impressive that so many ethical dilemmas were wrapped into a single narrative, which isn't the most cohesive thing, but works. The pacing is really slow though. You're presented with a problem and usually given like 40 seconds to answer. I usually answered within 10 seconds, sometimes immediately for the ones I've thought about a lot. Then, I waited...for...the...timer...to...count...down. There is a fast-forward button (it's A on the keyboard, took me forever to figure it out), but it hardly speeds it up. While you're waiting on the timer, and after the timer runs out, the narrator comments on your decision. I found it annoying that the narrator tries to be snarky in their comments (Portal 2, this is not, but the voice actor does a good job). Obviously there is no right answer for these and all answers are justifiable. The narrator could have been more objective in suggesting pros/cons/consequences/etc. and it would have been more thought-provoking for me. At the end of the wacky campaign, there is a complete reading list sourcing the dilemmas. If I had a lot of free time, I would go read them all. Super cool addition!

This game jumps out immediately as appropriate for educational contexts (and the main start screen suggests this), but I wonder what the medium here has over giving students these problems on paper, especially since when playing the game you only have 40 seconds to answer. Presumably, you'd want students to think about the problems longer than that. I suppose you could do the "jot down which ones stood out to you" prompt, and then they could consider those they identified later. I'll keep this in my mind!