{"ID":2881223,"CreatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.13074","arxiv_id":"2508.13074","title":"Ashes or Breath: Exploring Moral Dilemmas of Life and Cultural Legacy through Mixed Reality Gaming","abstract":"Traditional approaches to teaching moral dilemmas often rely on abstract, disembodied scenarios that limit emotional engagement and reflective depth. To address this gap, we developed \\textit{Ashes or Breath}, a Mixed Reality game delivered via head-mounted displays(MR-HMDs). This places players in an ethical crisis: they must save a living cat or a priceless cultural artifact during a museum fire. Designed through an iterative, values-centered process, the experience leverages embodied interaction and spatial immersion to heighten emotional stakes and provoke ethical reflection. Players face irreversible, emotionally charged choices followed by narrative consequences in a reflective room, exploring diverse perspectives and societal implications. Preliminary evaluations suggest that embedding moral dilemmas into everyday environments via MR-HMDs intensifies empathy, deepens introspection, and encourages users to reconsider their moral assumptions. This work contributes to ethics-based experiential learning in HCI, positioning augmented reality not merely as a medium of interaction but as a stage for ethical encounter.","short_abstract":"Traditional approaches to teaching moral dilemmas often rely on abstract, disembodied scenarios that limit emotional engagement and reflective depth. To address this gap, we developed \\textit{Ashes or Breath}, a Mixed Reality game delivered via head-mounted displays(MR-HMDs). This places players in an ethical crisis: t...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.13074","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.13074v1","authors":"[\"Black Sun\",\"Ge Kacy Fu\",\"Shichao Guo\"]","published":"2025-08-18T16:46:08Z","proceeding":"cs.HC","tasks":"[\"cs.HC\"]","methods":"[]","has_code":false}