Ledonne

And I'll definitely be listening to your new one with Danny Ledonne then.

A post for Xenia: Simulation and an apologetic explanation of Super Columbine Massacre RPG Ben Abraham 2008

I recently interviewed Danny Ledonne about his reasons for creating SCMRPG and got some interesting responses.

A post for Xenia: Simulation and an apologetic explanation of Super Columbine Massacre RPG Ben Abraham 2008

Ledonne, like all creators of "serious games," uses gameplay as a rhetorical technique.

I, Columbine Killer 2007

Ledonne actually reconstructed copious dialogue for the pair, pulled from real-life transcripts of what they said on the day of the shooting -- including survivor reports and their own videotapes of themselves.

I, Columbine Killer 2007

Right off the bat, Ledonne tries to put his critics off guard by delivering precisely the opposite of what you'd expect.

I, Columbine Killer 2007

These are the only photos of real-life carnage you see in the entire game: Ledonne follows them up with a montage of news photos of the survivors clutching each other in horror, then archival shots of the killers as young boys, but he avoids any pictures of the dead victims.

I, Columbine Killer 2007

The upshot is that Ledonne has done a surprisingly good job of painting the emotional landscape of the pair -- whipsawing from self-pity to pompous grandiosity and blinding rage, then back again.

I, Columbine Killer 2007

So I called up Ledonne to ask what the secret was.

I, Columbine Killer 2007

The competition organizers had originally lobbied Ledonne to enter the game, and the jury selected it as a finalist.

I, Columbine Killer 2007

"It's a little joke -- you have to be really, really bad to survive in hell," Ledonne said.

I, Columbine Killer 2007