Game Design and Player Decision-Making in Morally Uncertain Situations

Sammanfattning

This thesis investigates how game design influences player decision-making in morally uncertain situations. It focuses on how environmental storytelling and narrative design shape the players’ interpretation of the game world and how these interpretations informed their decision-making. The study is relevant to game designers who aim to create moral uncertainty without relying solely on explicit choice interfaces or conventional morality systems. The research was conducted through a Research through Design approach, using the 2D narrative-driven role-playing game Absolutely as the main design artifact. The project was developed through a pilot study and two formal playtesting iterations, with data collected through gameplay observation and post-session interviews. The findings show that readable visual and narrative cues did not automatically influence moral decision-making. Players often interpreted them as functional information that supported procedural task completion. However, cues became more morally meaningful when players connected them across zones, characters, relationships, and consequences. In these cases, decision-making became more morally uncertain and difficult as players began to understand their choices as affecting specific people and relationships within the game world.