Josh Nichols

Super Columbine Massacre RPG!

Using art to serve as social critique is never easy. A good way to measure how well you’re succeeding at it is by the amount of people you get to talk about it. It doesn’t matter if you’re hated because of it. It doesn’t matter if you’re loved because of it. All that matters is that people see it and react to it. That reaction is the only way the art can achieve it’s intended purpose: to cause change.

When Danny Ledonne created his analysis of the terrible events of Columbine High School, it aroused a mass of reaction that spanned the gamut between love and hate. As he explains in his Artist’s Statement, he has been described as a “genus” and a “real philosopher” as well as a “sick human being” and “the Antichrist.” Rarely does someone’s work achieve such polarizing reactions. I suppose the title of the work, Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, doesn’t do much to help the matter. Neither does the chosen medium.

Ledonne used a computer program called RPG Maker to create a video game in the fashion of 16-bit era role playing games that let the “player,” a word I use for lack of a better one, take the role of Eric and Dylan in an accurate reenactment of that awful day doing the unthinkable. Along the way flashbacks, evidence and clues are uncovered that give the player a better understanding on why such a thing happened. They not only get to learn about that fateful day, they get to interact and experience it, and in the process uncover all the layers of complexity.

It’s an experience that other forms of media can’t do, but because it’s a “video game” it loses all credibility. Much like the comic book’s struggle to become graphic literature, the video game can’t seem to shed it’s kiddy toy connotation that society has put on it.

I want to make this clear: The game does not glorify what happened or try to justify it. Before you pass judgment on it, be sure to read the artist’s statement and “play” the game. Or at least watch a video of the run through. It isn’t pretty and it isn’t fun, but that’s not the point.

With it’s release in 2005, the game gathered a lot of attention and media coverage thrusting this concept of social critique as video game into the spotlight. A little over a year later, it gained even more attention when it was nominated for an award at the 2007 Slamdance Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition but was pulled because of “moral obligations,” a.k.a. pressure from sponsors. In reaction of such censorship, other nominees decided to withdraw their nominations in protest. An open letter to the festival explains their feelings on the matter.

Update: It looks like Slamdance has another lame excuse not to include the game — they might get sued. Ha.

Update: It looks like the controversy “seriously compromised” the event and no prizes were awarded.

Update: Judges for the film documentary category at Slamdance tried to give the game a special jury prize, but that was nixed by Peter Baxter as soon as he found out.

Super Columbine Massacre RPG! has certainly caused discussion and reaction, but it’s just too early to tell if it has enacted any change. The subject matter may have been too controversial for society to accept in a “game,” even though the pointless film Elephant gathered critical acclaim.

I think the game is a perfect example of art as social critique and I hope it sparks interest in other artists to push the boundaries of what video games can be. Then maybe society’s perception of video games will begin to change.