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Tuesday 29 May, 2012
So now I’m in hell -- literally. At this point I have settled to a point of frustration and disbelief that the designers would actually go this far with the medium. I definitely have to affirm that I am abused at this point, to the point of frustration – I’ve spent most of my own time playing this game hoping that I can gain some kind of meaningful insight through a thoughtful narrative, but instead I was given a repetitive scenario where I have to go through the combat system over and over again just to progress, right after I was tired of making a conscious effort to actually kill the students. There’s no way I’m going to play for beyond this session. I personally believe it’s the designer’s responsibility to treat the game as a “documentative” medium, while at the same time making it accessible for people who are more interested in the story rather than the gameplay, simply because the gameplay had gotten really boring at this point.
I guess I’ll take some time now to reflect about the game’s significance. I do think it is significant, in that it proves games that it can be a storytelling medium, especially for real-world events in this case. I don’t think it was insulting to portray the characters in the game as 16-bit characters because this was thoughtfully designed with a narrative perspective in mind. In other words, the killers eventually transformed their worldviews similar to that of what is expressed in Super Columbine RPG. I feel that is valid. But at the same, this can be really misunderstood. One would say choosing to use the 16-bit graphic and making the situation a parody of a JRPG is insulting and desensitizing to the reality of the actual shootings.
It’s because this game can be misunderstood as an offense to the victims and the school that the game is not accessible. I feel the designers had a responsibility to make this accessible not only to gamers and non-gamers, but to the victims (and families of the victims) who were involved in the massacre. Otherwise this makes a great documentary since it represents an interpretation of two emergent motivations based on an assembly of arguments made from collective evidence related to the shootings… at least until the two protagonists reached hell.
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