Reality is a Game

Game thinking from Adam Clare

Category: PhilosophyPage 1 of 17

Compare Your Morals in Dr. Trolley’s Problem

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On 07/09/2022

In Business, Philosophy, Video Games

Stats displayed in the trolley problem game

 

Over at Wero we just launched a BIG update to our trolley problem game: Dr. Trolley’s Problem!

You can now compare what you think is the “correct” decision to thousands of other players. Are they wrong? Are you wrong? You can now see stats on decisions you make in-game. We want to know which ones players agreed on and which ones generated differences in opinion.

We also added more problems for you to address! 20 new dilemmas which will get you thinking what should I do? More moral problems! We’ve added more scenarios where you have to make tough choices about what’s right and what’s wrong, so that we can keep expanding on this aspect of gameplay and give you more difficult decisions to make.

This is something I wanted in the game since it was pushed out the door back in 2019, yes the game is that old and we still updated it.

Developer Commentary

Games from Ontario Steam promotional image of trolley problem game

This update to the trolley problem game is timed with Games From Ontario Steam Sale. There are over  TK games and companies participating- check them all out!

As part of the promotion of Ontario made games I’ll be streaming Dr. Trolley’s Problem while providing commentary. Joining me on the first stream will be the programmer who built the stats system. 

Tune into our Steam broadcast to hear about the making of the game and the real world situations that influenced the trolley problems in the game!

 We’ll be live on Steam at the times below to play Dr. Trolley’s Problem. Follow Wero on Twitter for a reminder.

September 7th at 5pm EST

September 12th at 3pm EST

Honestly, just check Steam everyday from the 7th to the 14th to check out some great games made in Ontario. There’ll be deals and streams all week!

I’ll be hosting two bonus streams about another game Sept. 12 5pm and 13th at 4pm (more on that later).

Data Collection Privacy

We also care about privacy, so we had to build our own custom system to track all the trolley problems. 

We’re committed to making sure that our trolley problem game is as safe and secure as possible—we don’t track or store any personal information about our users. Only you see your decisions and how you compare to others. When you make a decision it’s recorded anonymously without any data attached to you.

If you’re interested in this we’ll talk about it on the first stream.


Play the Trolley Problem Now!

 

 

Dr. Trolley’s Problems are Yours to Solve

by

On 03/02/2020

In Experimental, Philosophy, Psychology, Video Games

Download Dr. Trolley’s Problem on:

Steam (PC/Mac)           Itch.io (PC/Mac*)          App Store (iOS)

Dr. Trolley’s Problem is fully complete and at version 1.0. You can play this gam all about the trolley problem on almost all the important systems, with hopefully more to come. It’s the trolley problem game you’ve been waiting for!Dr. Trolley's Problem

Dr. Trolley’s Problem brings the classic philosophical quandaries of The Trolley Problem to life and asks you to make life or death decisions on the fly. Explore your moral fibre in ways you never imagined (or asked for)!

Dr. Trolley is an infamous robot mad scientist from another dimension which has sequestered you in its simulation to answer the most pressing questions:

Should humans be allowed to drive cars? Or would driving (and most other things) be safer in the hands of Artificial Intelligence?

 

Successes

trolley problem game screenshot

What we found during Early Access and almost a year of lackadaisical testing.

  • The trolley problem situations spurred the conversations we hoped for.
  • People want to be mobile, so the iOS version came from people asking for it.
  • People enjoyed the chance-based situations after a series of serious ones. This was predictable since the inclusion of chance takes mental pressure off of the player.
  • My code is like spaghetti, and yes, it’s far worse than VVVVVV‘s. I consider this point about code a success since my coding as improved to know how bad I was at it 😉

Next Steps

Promotion!

Basically we’re going to try to get it this game in front of as many people as possible. We’d love your help in that process! Tell your friends about the game and share as much as you can on social media.

 

Since a game is never actually done, we’re going to continue to fix bugs. I wish I could release things that are bug free, but that’s basically impossible for me 🙁

*the Itch.io Mac version is suffering from inability to correctly sign the app. Still working on it. The Steam version seems to work.

trolley problem game

If we get enough sales (that’s to say quantifiable interest) we’ll do more:

  • Add thematic situation packs. Situations take time to make and I only want to create more if I know they’ll be played. Thematic situations like political ones require custom art and that adds hard costs (not just time).
  • Android version. I’ve tried and failed due to the bundle size, hopefully this will be released soon.
  • Better, real time, statistics. I’ll admit the game is deceptive and I don’t like that as one of the goals from the get go was to share stats about player decisions. Implementing this turned out to be a nightmare and delayed us releasing the game by half a year. In summary, sending data to an analytics program is easy (ads track you everywhere and you really should get a tracker blocker), showing the collected data back to players is hard. I know that someone reading this is thinking “but that’s so easy and I do that all the time”; but, my coding skills are limited and my patience has run out dealing with multiple analytics services and their limitations.

You made it this far in the post so I know you care 🙂

 

 

Please show your love by sharing this post on your social network of choice.

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