Research Environment I · Unity (C#)
Prison Sandbox
Closed Social System · Information Scarcity · Consequence Permanence
Research Instrument Context
Prison Sandbox is not documented here as a game pitch. It is documented as a research instrument — a designed environment whose structural properties systematically isolate the variables under investigation in the PhD proposal. Every design decision below maps to a research variable, a research question, or a methodological constraint. The setting exists because of what it enables, not the other way around.
Why This Environment — Research Design Rationale
Closed Population — Variable Isolation
A fixed agent population in a bounded space allows systematic variation of social variables without environmental noise. New agents cannot enter; dead agents cannot return. This makes the social network measurable and its evolution attributable to agent behavior rather than population flux. RQ1 requires this — you cannot measure information reliability's effect on social network structure if the network boundary is permeable.
Escape Objective — Information-Seeking Behavior
The player's only goal is escape. No authored path exists. This naturally produces information-seeking behavior: the player must talk to agents, evaluate their reliability, and build partial models of a social system they cannot fully observe. The objective operationalises RQ1's core construct — agent information reliability — as a design mechanic rather than a background parameter.
High-Stakes Irreversibility — Consequence as Mechanic
Killing an NPC permanently removes their narrative thread. Choosing one faction closes routes to others. There is no save-and-reload. This makes consequence permanence (Pillar III, RQ3) a felt experience rather than a configurable parameter — and means the human evaluation phase (Phase 3) captures perceived narrative weight under genuinely irreversible conditions.
Hidden Agendas — Reliability Stratification
Each agent carries private information states and motivations invisible to the player. Information shared by one agent may conflict with information shared by another for reasons that are agentically coherent. This models the strategic information distortion — lying, selective disclosure, exaggeration — that the proposal identifies as the under-explored driver of emergent social narrative (Section 2).
Research Variable Mapping — Design Decision to Proposal Construct
| Closed inmate population | Fixed agent count enables precise measurement of social network structural properties (RQ1). Population closure is a methodological requirement, not a narrative convenience. | Pillar I · RQ1 |
| Faction-stratified information access | Inmates, guards, and faction leaders have non-overlapping information states. Information reliability varies systematically by social position — modeling the trust-stratified propagation the framework formalises. | Pillar II · RQ2 |
| Permanent NPC death | Irreversible removal of an agent and their associated narrative thread. Tests RQ3 directly — how does consequence permanence affect perceived narrative coherence when the loss is structurally significant? | Pillar III · RQ3 |
| Contradictory escape routes | Multiple agents offer structurally incompatible information about escape paths. The player cannot validate information externally. This operationalises information reliability variance as the primary navigation constraint. | Pillar I · RQ1 |
| Faction allegiance tracking | Choices made with one faction permanently alter access to others. Models how consequence permanence shapes the available social state space — directly relevant to the interaction effect in RQ3. | Pillar III · RQ3 |
Designed Agent Population — Social Variable Carriers
The Informant
Reliability: Stratified
Trades information selectively. Accurate about some domains, systematically misleading about others. Models partial information reliability — the agent architecture's core construct.
The Guard Captain
Reliability: Corrupted
Holds accurate system information but withholds or distorts based on self-interest. Social position gives them credibility their information reliability does not warrant.
Faction Leader (3)
Reliability: Group-bounded
Accurate within faction knowledge, misleading about rival factions. Trust propagates through group membership — models Pillar II's trust network structure.
Long-term Inmates
Reliability: Rumor-based
Hold degraded second-hand information. Models how information reliability decays through social propagation chains — the structural decay central to RQ1.
Implementation Status
Prison Sandbox is designed as a research instrument; implementation is Phase 1 of the PhD. The design documentation above is not a game pitch — it is evidence that the research environments have been designed with methodological rigour before the PhD begins, and that every structural decision maps to an explicit research variable.