Super Columbine Massacre RPG!

**Content Warnings included**: Mention of real-life violence.

Template:Game Box
**Super Columbine Massacre RPG!** is a 2005 American role-playing video game developed by Danny Ledonne, using the "illegitimate" RPG Maker 2000/2003 program. The game's premises drew recreation the 1999 Columbine High School shootings in Columbine, Colorado. Additionally, he was inspired to create a video game about Columbine by his own experience being bullied and the effect the shooting had on his life.

Ledonne had spent many years conceptualizing games, but never created one due to his lack of game design and programming knowledge. Instead, he is using an "illegitimate" version of ASCII's game development program RPG Maker 2000/2003 easily enough to develop at the time, which took approximately six months to complete.

Ledonne initially published the game anonymously, releasing an artist's statement about the work after his identity was revealed. *Super Columbine Massacre* was released for free online and attracted little attention until 2006, when widespread media coverage and controversy fueled hundreds of thousands of downloads.

Known for its obscurity and real-life messages amongst the school shootings in a video game, it represents a critique of how traditional media sensationalized the shooting, as well as parodying video games themselves; unbeknownst to the RPG Maker community, it is heavily or not implied Ledonne is actually using Don Miguel's (2000) or RPG Advocate's (2003) translation, making it one of the few possible games made in an illegitimate program during the height of RPG Maker distribution piracy in the 2000s.

## Synopsis

Players assume the roles of gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and act out the massacre, with flashbacks relating parts of Harris and Klebold's past experiences. The game begins on the day of the shootings and follows Harris and Klebold after their suicides to fictional adventures in perdition.

## Gameplay

Players control the actions of teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold; the pair entered Colorado's Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, and killed 13 people before turning their guns on themselves in a library. Much of the game takes place in a third-person view, with players controlling Harris and Klebold from an overhead perspective. The graphics and characters are deliberately reminiscent of a 16-bit-era video game; while the content is violent, the violence is not graphically rendered.

When players engage in battle, the screen changes to a first-person view of the enemy; enemies are named by stereotypes or occupations, such as "Preppy girl", "Janitor", "Math teacher" and "Jock Type". Combat has two options: "auto play", where the game chooses the weapon to use, or "manual play", in which the player decides to use a hand-to-hand weapon, explosive, gun, or defensive maneuver against foes. Once a battle starts, it is impossible to avoid or escape; the player must kill the enemy or die themselves. Text narrates battle events and actions such as finding a bag or gaining a weapon.

As the game proceeds, flashbacks occur showing events in Harris and Klebold's lives which may have caused them to commit murder; real life events are compressed into the game's timeframe for narrative purposes. Much of the plot is constructed around the events as they are believed to have occurred; lines of the gunmen's dialogue are often lifted verbatim from their writings or from their own home videos of each other. In contrast to the 16-bit graphics are digitized photographs from the shooting or full voice samples from news reports; photos of the school are used as backdrops during battle scenes.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Rocky Mountain News: Local (archive.org)
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Panel: Deadly Games: Echoes of Columbine. Denver Film Society (November 23, 2008).
3. ↑ Kuchera, Ben (January 9, 2007). Game Review: Super Columbine Massacre. Ars Technica.
4. ↑ Benedetti, Winda (June 30, 2008). These games really push our buttons. MSNBC.
5. ↑ Dugan, Patrick (March 13, 2007). Soapbox: Why You Owe the Columbine RPG (page 3). Gamasutra.

LICENSES