Porcelain Hearts

  • Project:

    Master's Thesis Project
  • Date:

    April 2017
  • Timespan:

    2 Weeks
  • My fields:

    Programming, GUI, data collection, online security

Choose your character, then venture into an abandoned house in search for treasure. But be wary, the old mansion may not be as abandoned as it would first seem

This game was developed as part of our Master's Thesis project. With this project, we investigated the influence of the player character's inner thoughts on player decision making. The game contains a series of choices, some important and some arbitrary. When the player is faced with an important choice, their character's feelings about that choice will be revealed before they make it.

For each of these important choices, the player would have to choice between taking a treasure, that is pursuing the goal of the game, or leave it. We argued, that if the player character was reluctant to take a treasure, the player would be more willing to follow the wish of their character, and abandon the goal of the game.

We found that players were infact more willing to abandon the goal of the game, and get a worse score, when their character disagreed with pursuing the goal. However, we also learned that players where more willing to pursue the goal of the game, when their character agreed to taking the treasure.