Questions
What type of limitations will be applied to the person or team acting out the ethical dilemma? Should every team have to use the same limitations throughout the whole game or should different ones be used per dilemma?
This is an important question for our game because it will determine the main challenge inherent in the game. In Charades, there would be no game if people could just say what their word is. It is clear that there has to be some limitation applied to the actors of a prompt, but it doesn’t necessarily need to always be the same one like in Charades. To answer this question, we will need to make a implementation focused prototype to see how to best implement the specific mechanic of limitations. Likely, we could just attempt to convey the same example prompt with a variety of limitations present. Answering the second question will be dependent on if we feel like one limitation is enough or if there are multiple interesting limitations discovered during the making and testing of this prototype.
Should players be given further roles in addition to an ethical dilemma, such as parties involved in the dilemma? Or should they be given a role and have to act according to that role in all future dilemmas?
This is an important question because it adds another dimension of fun to the game, in adding more of a fantasy or roleplaying element. It would also serve as another challenge on top of possible limitations to acting out the dilemma, which could make the game more complex or difficult. Thus, it needs to be determined whether it is an element of the game worth pursuing. This would likely be an implementation focused prototype like the last question. Using the same ethical dilemma, we could try out acting out specific roles in the dilemma or thinking about the dilemma in the shoes of a specific role and see whether or not this added complication is seen as fun and fun enough to keep in the game despite added complexity.
Does the game successfully encourage a social dynamic where players are encouraged to express themselves and their views on dilemmas without fear of being judged or ridiculed and grow closer as a result? How can the mechanics be tuned to create this dynamic?
This is a larger, wider scope question that concerns the very reason why people would play this game and speaks to its core nature as a fun getting to know you game. When discussing these types of ethical dilemmas and how we would respond to them, people may get vulnerable especially if the dilemma relates to something they may have actually experienced. We want the game to be fun but to treat these topics seriously; so we need to strike the right balance with the ethical dilemmas chosen and the mechanics of the game to ensure people don’t feel like they’re being ridiculed or looked down upon for choosing to respond to a dilemma in a specific way. Testing this would require more of an integration prototype with an emphasis on role, since it’s about what the game can do for someone. The prototype would need to have a wide variety of dilemmas and a candid survey of players asking how comfortable they are on answering and having those dilemmas in the game.
