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As my avatar suggests, I'm a very big fan of the Danganronpa and Zero Escape series from Spike Chunsoft. As such, I decided to try my hand at my own similar project, if nothing but a fan project, a homage to the two series I have spent a lot of time with. As I looked for ways to make my project different from both series, I looked at common moral dilemmas and arrived at one I find particularly interesting: The Trolley dilemma.


To describe the Trolley Dilemma simply, a trolley (or any other object that will cause death for certain) is heading towards a group of people, in this case, let's call them Group A. On the opposing track is a single person tied up, let's call them Group B. The person with the lever, in this case, Group C, has a simple choice. They can either choose to pull the switcher, switching the cart trolley onto the other track and killing Group B, or do nothing, and let the Trolley kill Group A.

The Trolley problem raises the question: "Is it more just to save a group of people by sacrificing one?" and "Is allowing more people to die without your interference better than having one person die by your own hand?"

Of course, there are several issues with the Trolley problem when being used as the core for a Killing Game. The biggest and most glaring flaw is that compared to Danganronpa and Zero Escape's game setups, it becomes increasingly hard for an Executioner to successfully kill Group A and not get killed (either by ending up on the tracks themselves during the next round, or killed by another player due to their refusal to pull the lever), meaning the majority of Executioners would pull the lever every time, erasing the dilemma entirely. At the same time, an Executioner cannot go free immediately after playing the Trolley game once. The only solution that I thought of to this issue is that The Executioner's identity is hidden. In the case of the trolley dilemma, a trolley and tracks are not necessary, as it would be very obvious to notice a person reaching for a lever (or not).