SCMRPG! Nearly Turns Two. News at 10

By: Shapermc

On: April 12th, 2007

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Since returning from GDC this year I’ve seen just about one new article, column, or feature per week which has discussed, criticized, or highlighted SCMRPG!

Hit the extended for a short list of possibly the most talked about game from the independent community ever.

First up is the soapbox article by Patrick Dugan titled “Why You Owe the Columbine RPG.” As expected, this article covers many benefits of the game’s existence claiming that “SCMRPG! and the media surrounding it is affecting three positive trends for games, and in the long-term, the game industry:

-It’s introducing game designers to new notions about what games can be.”

The article goes into a lot of depth discussing it’s effects on the media, non-gamers, and how it relates to game design. It is well written and worth a look, even for the skeptics.

Next, Jason Dobson reports on the <a href=http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13330 >“Columbine Controvery Examined at Serious Games Symposium” for Gamasutra. The article cover the panel discussion at Living Game Worlds Syposium relating to the controversial explosion from the game’s Slamdance reception. The panel included: “USC Interactive Media Program’s Tracey Fullerton and Georgia Institute of Technology assistant professor and Persuasive Games founding partner Ian Bogost, as well as Slamdance competition organizer Sam Roberts, all of whom seemed to agree that that the removal of Super Columbine Massacre RPG! for the event was ‘symbolic of a cultural misunderstanding of this medium.’” It reads more like a postmortem on the Festival itself, but an interesting article nonetheless.

Earlier this week, James Edwards wrote a new review of the game for “the pitchforkmedia.com of videogames” review site ActionButton.net. He gave the game a scathing 0 out of 4 stars (with 1 star being an average rating) and states that “Super Columbine Massacre RPG! is a game which evokes lank hair and scuffed combat boots with little or no effort. This owes less to the success of the author in evoking the twisted souls of Eric Harris and Daniel Kobold and more to the simple fact that only people with lank hair and scuffed combat boots make these kinda things sincerely. Long before Daniele ever paraded this kind of crap as sincere parody, Slipknot fans the world over were making shitty flash games just like it. Stickdeath.com was a horrible, crude and reactionary bag of filth, but it had the good grace to be sincere about what it intended – to make guileless balls of cheeto-dust and lard totally f***in’ snigger at their monitor, some bleary-eyed morning in their parents basement.” No mincing words here. James writes entertainingly enough that it’s worth a look if for no other reason that to figure out how to make a game he likes.

And today (the article which drove the nail in the coffin to get me to write this collection of articles) Sharon Sloane, President and CEO WILL Interactive, Inc., has an opinion piece about SCMRPG! up at Gamasutra. Her focus is on serious games in general, with the prevalent example of SCMRPG! as how real events can trigger very real emotional reactions from games. “Designing these games is part art, part science. Doing it well requires attention to many disciplines including psychology, screenwriting, learning and game design.” Those of you interested in covering more serious topics in games should definitely read this over as it contains very good food for though.

Could Super Columbine Massacre RPG! possibly be getting more attention in the media right now? Probably, but there certainly isn’t a shortage of it for a game that’s coming up on it’s two year anniversary next week. Hell, it will probably get more attention on the 20th of April because of the 8 year anniversary of the shooting.