Mars: An Ethical Expedition
A choose your own adventure game.
Mars: An Ethical Expedition! is an interactive, 12-week, narrative game about the colonization of Mars by various engineering specialists. Students take on the role of a head engineer and are presented with situations that require high-stakes decision-making. Various game mechanics induce students to act as they would on-the-fly, within a real engineering project context, using personal reasoning and richly context-dependent justifications, rather than simply right/wrong answers. Each segment of the game is presented in audio and text that ends with a binary decision that determines what will happen next in the story. Historically, this game had been led by an instructor and played weekly, as a whole-class assignment, completed at the beginning of class. The class votes and the majority option is presented next. In addition to the central decision, there are also follow-up questions at the end of each week that provoke deeper analysis of the situation and reflection on the ethical principles involved.
This game was initially developed within a learning management system, then supported by the Twine™ game engine. In 2022-23 the game was redesigned and extended using the Godot™ game engine. In addition to streamlining the gameplay loop and reducing the set-up and data management required by instructors, this redesign supported instructors with an option to allow the game to be student-paced and played by individual students or to keep the instructor-led 12 week whole-class playstyle.
Let's Practice!
Play more of the game to find out what happens next!