Super Columbine Massacre
April 30th, 2008 emilywitt
Just hearing the name ‘Super Columbine Massacre’ put an image into my head of exactly what this game was going to be like. I decided that I wanted to play a little bit of it before I read the artist statement just to get a feel for the game, but I soon realized after playing for about fifteen minutes that without reading the statement, the game was just thoroughly disturbing. Danny Ledonne in his statement says “I wanted to make something that mattered,” and in some ways I feel that he accomplished that task. After playing and reading Ledonne’s statement, I still felt extremely disturbed that I had played this game, however I can see Ledonne’s point in that the game did, in some ways, put me into the minds of Dylan and Eric, however twisted it might seem to play the game.
I think that what was most disturbing about playing this game in comparison with other games where there is shooting and killing involved, is that in this game they were real people and that this event actually happened. I know that this was Ledonne’s plan in making the game, but having real names to the real faces that you are killing is upsetting. For example, in the game you encounter the girl who’s story is widely known about admitting to believe in God before being shot at Columbine. Having and exact name and an exact face to put in that situation puts you directly into the situation that happened.
I think that if this event had never actually occurred and that it was just a situation that was created in Ledonne’s mind, I would not have been as disturbed while playing the game. There still would have been a little disturbance because of the school setting, but there would not have been an actual picture in my mind of the events that happened on that day.
Entry Filed under: Game Log
3 Comments
1. mstarkey | May 1st, 2008 at 1:54 pm
My initial reactions to hearing about the SCMRPG were similar to Emily’s. What sicko would purposely make a videogame that was modeled after a brutal school shooting? (Playing this game in the crowded computer lab was interesting; I wonder what the students were thinking as I played a game about school shootings, especially since the VA Tech shootings last April.) The concept of creating games like SCMRPG never entered my mind; I could imagine maybe someone writing a book about the columbine massacre, but never from the perspective of the killers. The nature of videogames puts the gamer into another perspective through the actions of the character. Killing prostitutes and random strangers in Grand Theft Auto does not affect me after playing, but going through the actions of the Columbine killers before the actual killing started was what left the lasting impression upon me. My initial thoughts about the sick nature of SCMRPG changed as I immersed myself in the game. One of the greatest problems facing our society today is ignorance and uneducated people. To fully understand the Columbine massacre one truly does have to understand what mind frame these teenagers had to be in to cause them to strike out against their fellow students and eventually take their own lives. I feel that the lack of understanding of people’s circumstances and the history behind tragic events and situations which face us today are greatly overlooked and problems are simplified, providing inadequate explanations and solutions. If more people played SCMRPG then maybe there would be a greater understanding of what situations delusional people have to be in to react so violently to their situation. I don’t think a greater understanding of events like Columbine would produce more school killings, but the experience would allow the player to not only understand Columbine but other situations of similar nature. It is hard to conceive how people like Dylan and Eric could think that a massive school shooting would make the world a better place, but then again it’s hard to conceive how some people do not like chocolate. The idea that each person as an individual with a completely unique thought process is one that most people rarely, if they ever, think about. Further exposure to others’ individual experience and ideology is how understanding of what is foreign is brought about. The SCMRPG does a wonderful job of allowing the player to have a greater understanding of the Columbine massacre, because it put you in the different experience of Eric and Dylan. Games like this could be instrumental for a greater understanding of many problems that are affecting our world today.
2. scify_rd | May 2nd, 2008 at 9:53 am
While I agree that the game was disturbing, I’m not so sure that without it being a real event it would be any less disturbing. I think it would, instead, just be a different kind of disturbing. <br>Is there a certain degree of weirdness to play a game where you interact with, and know the fates of, real people who the characters you control kill? Yes. Is it perhaps weirder to play such a game where your characters are people that, at best, were judged post facto to be crazy, depressed teenagers who had taken too much of what the world dished out to them, and at worst were characterized as maniacal demons out of Hell itself who came to this world for the sole purpose of killing people they knew? Certainly. But it does, as Ledone puts it, have a meaning to it (well, perhaps not the Hell level… that was just odd). <br>But that was all at least based on real events. Weird as it may be, you know that the game creator didn’t spend quite a bit of his time for the better part of a year or two carefully crafting a game where two people go into a school and kill their classmates and teachers, eventually committing suicide themselves, and going to Hell while the world above mourns and questions “why?” and “how?” <i>without any real world basis guiding his creative hand.</i> Wouldn’t it be, in many ways, far creepier that this level of detail was put into a game about a school shooting that was conceived entirely in the artist’s mind?
3. Professor Sample | May 14th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Robert asks "Wouldn’t it be, in many ways, far creepier that this level of detail was put into a game about a school shooting that was conceived entirely in the artist’s mind?"
I think you’re absolutely onto something here. In fact, when I read your comment, I actually shuddered thinking about that possibility — of someone coming up with the school shooting idea and making a game around it.