Religious Playgrounds: Playing with Ethics and Religious Identity in Video Games

Video games provide virtual playgrounds for exploring religious identity and ethical decision making. Games like Papers, Please should replace the trolley problem and other contrived thought experiments when teaching ethics, while other games such as Indika allow players to control a character going through a crisis of faith. Gameplay demonstrations of these two games will be provided. Student reactions to these games will be described, as well as the relevant scholarship that can transform games like these from pastime activities into serious objects of scholarly study.