I needed to figure out the average boundary of each side of ‘this trolley problem’ for the game ending so I posted polls on my Snapchat story.

Question: You are an African Wild Dog who needs to feed his wife and 2 children. What is the maximum amount of baby/ adult gazelles you would kill to feed your family?

Responses:

-’18’

-’Do I have the mind of the animal or the mind of me- If I had the brain of the dog I would have the killer instincts’

-’As many as I need to’

‘If I said 30, why would you need to kill that many just to feed a family of 4’

‘I don’t think there is a limit’

After reviewing the answers, I decided I needed to be more specific so my next question was:

‘You are playing as an African Wild Dog in a game and you need to feed his family. Would you kill a family of 20 innocent gazelles to feed your family of 4?’

The results were: 14 said yes and 1 said no

This made me realise it wasn’t about numbers, its about family. The circle of life also plays in as we as people understand that its the way of survival. This means I need to reassess the stakes and make them about family. People view the problem as saving your family over letting them starve and sparing some mindless animals. To relieve this issue I need to give the gazelles a mind and a brain, show them living their lives with their families. This inflicts a conscious question of morals as the murder then actually means something. To explicitly present this I need to show the gazelles communicating with each other, showing love. I can additionally show a cut-scene to give the player time to think about the decision and maybe add commentary that discusses the choice that you have to make.

Additionally I don’t need to make it 50/50 choice where half of people chose one way as the player will still be affected by having to kill the gazelle that has a family. Furthermore, I could make the player have to choose which one to kill. End game could be the gazelles understanding they need a sacrifice to let the dogs family live but the player has to pick which one to kill, and if they don’t choose in time then their family dies