When Choosing Between Buying Or Not Buying, Go For ‘Buying’
I do like it when a game leads me down a Wikipedia rabbithole. The first use of the Trolley Problem was thought to be in 1905, in a moral questionnaire given out at the University of Wisconsin, but it’s featured in various theses, books and plays ever since. The term ‘Trolley Problem’ was finally attributed to it in a 1976 article by Judith Jarvis Thompson, and since then it’s become so engrained – in a similar manner to Schrodinger’s Cat, the Prisoner’s Dilemma and Pavlovian responses – that many of us could explain it down the pub.
The classic version is that a trolley, or tram, is hurtling down the tracks with no brakes. But oh no!: there are five people tied to the tracks in front of it, and they’re going to horrifically die if someone doesn’t do anything. Only you can save them: you can pull a lever and divert the trolley so that it hits another person, also tied to the tracks. It’s a moral dilemma because, by diverting the tram, you would be theoretically culpable for the death of that one person. They would not have died if it wasn’t for you. So, do you pull the lever?
A Small Case Of Tram-Substantiation
As a philosophy layman, it’s always bothered me. If I’m the only person in the vicinity who can pull the lever, then I’m probably the one who tied everyone down anyway. And I can’t help wanting to blame the rail companies, because they deserve blame for pretty much everything.
Take IT Studio! have a similarly satirical view of the whole Trolley Problem. They have scratched their beards and wondered how to possibly make a video game out of it. And they have come up with two answers. But instead of choosing, they put both of them into the same game. Why make a decision when you can do everything?
The Trolley Solution zigzags between the two different ideas throughout the game. The first idea is to let you experience the moral dilemma in various different guises. You get to stand at the lever, between the two groups of bound civilians, and make the classic choice. But you also get to make subsequent choices, some of them deeply troubling – would you save several normies, or a person who will one day cure cancer – and others that are plainly hilarious. The Trolley Solution has great fun shoving the lever into your hands and then running away cackling.
WarioWare, But With Added Death
None of these scenarios have a win or lose condition. You can pick what you want. Which, obviously, doesn’t make for a fantastic game, so Take IT Studio! Have interspersed them with minigames. These minigames are all riffs on the dilemma, and they most definitely do have a win/lose condition. You need to come out the other end with a victory, or you’re blocked from progressing.
As with most minigame collections, these are a mixed bag. I found that the best ones were the most unhinged. In one of them, The Trolley Solution asks you to keep a potential trolley rider from growing impatient by manipulating their social media. You need to scroll through the different posts and make sure the commuter focuses on the ones that most equalise their various anxiety bars. If they look at a picture of a dog, they’ll be fine. But if you doomscroll and find something politically charged, then the disgust levels will rise up.
There’s a lovely tendency to pisstake established games. A Crazy Taxi rip-off has you hurtling around a city, completely trackless, picking up customers. It’s one Offspring-song short of a perfect parody. Every level is an arched eyebrow, looking to pilfer from other games or ridicule the whole endeavour.
Like Most Trollies, It Can Be Hard To Control
The Trolley Solution doesn’t always get it right, and the worst minigames were the ones that felt made for PC, rather than console. One of the final levels has you solving multiple trolley problems at ridiculous speed, pulling levers with the smallest information possible. But the controls can’t keep up: you’re meant to tap the analogue stick to bring the next lever into focus, but it’s so incredibly inaccurate that I am amazed anyone has completed it.
Another faintly rubbish one is a series of maths problems, layered onto trolley tracks, but they are confusingly presented and take a relaxed attitude to BIDMAS. It’s really odd to me that they’re presented so joylessly, so straight. They stand out like a sore thumb, stuck in the maths department door.
Most of the time, though, I was having a good time with The Trolley Solution. The decision to alternate between actual problems – with no correct answer and only some achievements to really give you a pat on the back – and minigames was the right one, as a game that solely focused on one or the other would have become irrelevant or tiresome. Together, though, they riff off each other and carry the themes to places unexpected.
Jokes That Are Off Their Trolley
It’s also brilliantly written and presented. Whoever decided to apply ragdoll physics and showers of giblets to The Trolley Solution deserves a medal: the events are so OTT that you never feel like you’re stepping into a dilemma that is particularly serious. I’m wary of revealing too many of the consequences of your actions, since it would be like drunkenly shouting the punchlines to jokes, but you can take it from me that they’re scalpel-sharp.
I’m not sure I’ve played a package of games like The Trolley Solution. There are moments where I think it’s taking its philosophical role deadly seriously, and then it undermines everything with a brainless minigame. It has about a dozen different tones, and it seemingly picks from them at random. I’ll confess that there are some minigames that miss the mark, and some of the scenarios make you wonder about their intention, but – generally – The Trolley Solution is uniquely entertaining. Pick whichever lever that leads to you purchasing the game.
Important Links
Would You Pull The Lever? The Trolley Solution Arrives On Xbox And PlayStation – https://www.thexboxhub.com/would-you-pull-the-lever-the-trolley-solution-arrives-on-xbox-and-playstation/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/the-trolley-solution/9n585cxmvq9z
