You are making a game based around a School Shooting. How would you design it?

[Najos]

You are making a game based around a School Shooting.

No, I'm not. Because such a notion is irredeemably repugnant. People who are capable of the most basic levels of human empathy do not attempt to derive fun from real people's tragedy and suffering. I have to believe anyone who would even attempt such a game is on some level mentally/emotionally broken.

Just curious, but do you feel the same way about war games? I mean, there are more than a few games centered around Iraq/Afghanistan at this point. Certainly, war isn't the same as a school shooting, but games about it certainly involve deriving fun from the suffering of others.

Let's say I feel similarly. The closer, the more personal the depiction is, the poorer taste it is. I don't play modern military shooters just because I can't stand spunkgargleweewee as a genre, but I suspect these games don't paint as intimate portrayal of the victims as say, a Columbine video game would have to. If nothing else, the fact that the average shooter fan doesn't speak Arabic/Pashto and knows very little about the culture of the average citizens of these countries presents a barrier to seeing/understanding/experiencing their suffering in a way that Columbine would not have. There's an in-group/out-group distinction in the two settings that makes them distasteful for different reasons.

I can understand why you would find a glamorized version of violent incidents distasteful, but I'm not sure why the more personal the depiction is, the worse you find it. I mean, some of the most meaningful and moving works (writing, film, games) involve topics that are incredibly serious. Although, I might have missed something in our exchange. Is your issue specifically with the recreation of historical/recent events? For instance, would you be comfortable with a game approaching the issue of a fictitious school shooting in a serious manner?

Edit: I just thought of something else. If we think of video games as a form of expression, much like a film or book, would it be okay if someone made an auto-biographical video game about a mass shooting? What about a book?

Edit2: I'm sorry if I'm throwing a lot of questions at you. I'm just genuinely curious.

To be fair, in war games (most of them at any rate) the guys you shoot at shoot back. I mean yes you are doing a similar act by shooting people but there is a major difference between shooting unarmed students who are running for their lives and armed military/mercenaries/terrorists/ect trying to kill you with their own guns.

OT: I wouldn't make it a full game but I would make a level where you played a student trying to get out of the school for whoever is shooting it up.

You're right, my comparison wasn't perfect. I was more just focusing on the concept of taking joy from others suffering. War is, no matter what, suffering.

 

[Xan Krieger]

1. A top-down strategy/stealth game where you guide groups of students through the school trying to avoid the killer. And if he catches you, you get to watch a graphic cutscene of your people dying AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT YOU HORRIBLE PERSON!

2. A survival horror first-person or third-person game where you have to hide from the killer and escape. Throughout the game you can hear what the killer is thinking, and his thoughts are louder the closer he is.

Number 2 reminds me a lot of Slender except in this case the killer has a distance attack. Actually not a bad idea the more I think of it, maybe add a multiplayer mode where someone gets to play as the killer and the winner is based on gets the most kills when they're the psycho.

 

[warlordofpeace]

Whenever anyone escalates a conflict, they are entirely at fault for the escalation. When you respond to bullying with mass murder, you are 100% to blame.

Love your logic. So if I bully someone to the point that they go on a mass shooting not a single drop of blood would be on my hands? That's what it seems like your saying, seeing how they take all the blame and I just do it again. If that's not what you meant then please elaborate by what you mean. Yep 100%, not 99.99%, 100%

 

[Loonyyy]

Loonyyy
You went totally batshit crazy or should I say Loonyyy? I just wana say I'm sorry for offending you and it's really late here. Going to go sleep now and I won't respond for a while.

As someone who invents other people's arguments and opinions (I haven't even stated mine, I've simply countered yours), you shouldn't be calling names. This discussion is done, it's not fruitful. I'm blocking you. And, as I warned you, personal insults will get you reported.

 

[warlordofpeace]

Love your logic. So if I bully someone to the point that they go on a mass shooting

And this right here is where the fallacy in the argument gets slipped in. It's impossible to bully someone "to the point that they go on a mass shooting". Someone going on a mass shooting is not an inevitable consequence of bullying. Sure, people subjected to routine harassment may snap and react even with violence when put under pressure, there is no evidence that going home, assembling a collection semi-automatic weapons, handguns, sawed-off shotguns, pipe bombs, then coming back to the school and murdering a bunch of innocent people is an inevitable psychological consequence of being bullied. Therefore it's a choice. And baring diagnosis of clinical psychosis, the person who made the choice is 100% responsible.

Any other waffling and sympathy for the shooters (which I suspect comes not from a rational legal argument but from the arguer projecting their own feelings about being bullied onto the situation) completely dismantles our entire legal system. The fundamental basis of our system of law is that people (who aren't suffering from psychoses) are in control of themselves and that people make choices that govern their behavior. If gamers won't accept that a school shooter made a choice to shoot up people at his school, then why accept that anyone who commits any crime makes any choices? 9/11 bombers? Oh, they're just acting out of frustration- it's partly our fault. I've got a collection of kidnapped babies in my cellar that I murder and eat every day? Oh, that's just because Suzie McCallister wouldn't go to the prom with me.

Victim blaming is never an acceptable argument.

"inevitable" I take it you think I think that everyone who get's bullied goes on a shooting (mass, school, or single). I don't think that at all.

I don't see it as impossible. Just because It never happened doesn't mean that it never will.

Ok, pipe bombs no, but "hundreds of rounds of ammunition" apparently yes. W. R. Myers High School shooting. Only one death and one injured, but got wrestled to the ground.

I would have to say your right on the whole sympathy part even though I thought sympathy involved feelings not rational thinking. Yes I feel sympathy everyone involved. No one should have to deal with what they where going through (apparently mental problems says the FBI) and the people who got shoot should have not got shoot. You know why I do, because their Humans, you know those squishy life forms with emotions. Holding a gun and using it on someone doesn't make you less of a human, but it'll make you less humane.

"justifiable homicide" Who is to blame the one who shot last. (implying anyone who got shot at* first) *missing or hitting

 

[Milanezi]

You'd notice a lot of professional made games tend to either not have them or make children immortal...

In Fallout 2 you could get the "child killer" reputation, then the kids became immortal on Fallout 3 and NV lol

 

[Milanezi]

It probably wouldn't sell but...

You control "X" (the shooter), and most of the game takes place in your school, sometimes at home, on the streets, what the game would do is drive the character around a series of disturbing events to him/her, such as heavy bullying (the sort that is almost like a crime), or maybe abuse in different levels, anyway, heavy stuff. Thing is, the character needs to find a way to deal with things, and, if you pick certain behaviors you can avoid the shooting, the game will be dark anyway, you might kill yourself in the end, or simply manage to get through things with some awful memories to deal with but you moved on, that sort of thing. However, if you don't deal with things "the right way", the anger grows, and eventually the player is left on the "shooting stage", which might even be hinted by the beginning of the game (so the player is trying to avoid it).
Sincerely, I wouldn't buy it, too serious and probably slow paced, the realism would also hit too close to home for many people, specially in the US. Plus factor: no one likes to think about the subject, even if it seldom happens in their country, school is the one place where children are not under the "protection" of their parents, meaning parents need to believe they're safe there (even if they have to lie to themselves), so it hurts a lot for a parent to approach this subject in ANY way I guess.

 

[HannesPascal]

I would make it so that it begins with you and a friend (an NPC) arrives at school and the friend starts shooting and then unlike COD:Modern Warfare 2 you have the option of shooting your friend, if you take any other action it will be game over after 10 minutes and the game would chastise you. It would just be a flash game and also it would be set in Russia because then the American moral guardians would be totally fine with it.

 

[Milanezi]

And this right here is where the fallacy in the argument gets slipped in. It's impossible to bully someone "to the point that they go on a mass shooting". Someone going on a mass shooting is not an inevitable consequence of bullying. Sure, people subjected to routine harassment may snap and react even with violence when put under pressure, there is no evidence that going home, assembling a collection semi-automatic weapons, handguns, sawed-off shotguns, pipe bombs, then coming back to the school and murdering a bunch of innocent people is an inevitable psychological consequence of being bullied. Therefore it's a choice. And baring diagnosis of clinical psychosis, the person who made the choice is 100% responsible.

Victim blaming is never an acceptable argument.

Agreed. It's called "anticipation", it means that after the rush of emotions (which could lead to justifiable homicide in SOME cases) the person actually used LOGIC (went back home, gathered guns, ammo, waited till the next day, etc) and prepared for the crime/revenge; no longer driven by raw emotion the individual committed the crime with cold planning, as you said it's impossible to bully someone so much that, after days, they'll come back for (that sort of) revenge, there're instant reactions, but that's hardly the case.
Victim blaming is never an acceptable argument INDEED. You shouldn't have to expect the school to fill its doors with metal detectors, you shouldn't have to think about "home learning", because the element that is misplaced here are not your kids, not even the bullies, it's the CRIMINAL agent. The shooters are the disease, it's not the guns, the motivation, or whatever, only the shooters and their broken mind. One might ask who/what broke that mind, and maybe you find the answer, but those are still NOT the people who pull the trigger, after all, many people go through some HEAVIER stuff and manage to live on without, you know, becoming a sociopath.

 

[UniversalRonin]

I've seen several people looking at it the same way I would. The survival horror route, as a student, or a teacher trying to get as many people out as possible alive. Maybe even make it an SCP style scenario wherein it's just a case of trying to hide and survive for as long as possible until the inevitable happens.

 

[cubikill]

Make it a Dialogue based game where you are in a 911 call bank. You would have to answer calls, detect first responders, respond to Hysterical people in a helpful manner. The shooting would happen at a random time in the day, so you would have to answer 911 calls with out being able to meta game when the shooting was going to happen. The idea being no matter how well you do your job, it still happens. This way the game doesn't makes you feel the horror and Tragedy with out going to shooting itself. It becomes about the human response and how it affects people rather the the event itself.

 

[Mersadeon]

Ok, so how would I make this game...

top down perspective and always pausable(is that even a word? What would be the right word?), kinda like FTL. You have X number of Special Unit guys (depending on which country this mission is set in), you get a bit of information beforehand (like "a cellphone call from the building told us that it is a single guy" or a plan of the building, hastily scribbled onto a piece of paper by someone who got out, like in SWAT4) and you have to base your equipment on that. Of course, a single schoolboy with a stolen 9mm isn't going to be much of a challenge in an all-out firefight against SWAT, but you don't know where he is and if he has taken hostages. Maybe he even has homemade explosives.

So I am basically imagining SWAT4, just with a different theme and top-down tactical like the old games. Permadeath for your guys, lots of different equipment. You could actually write the game so that it can produce new levels on demand - shouldn't be too hard, since the theme will always be "small group of shooters in a school/university".

 

[warlordofpeace]

"inevitable" I take it you think I think that everyone who get's bullied goes on a shooting (mass, school, or single). I don't think that at all.

I never said you did, but that is the only way the argument that the bullies were in any way to blame for the school shooting to rationally work. People can only be responsible for the consequences they can reasonably expect to happen.

Imagine I have a sign up on my yard saying "No trespassers". However, on a dark and stormy night a couple gets a flat tire in the rain right outside my property and tries to come to my house to use the phone and call for help. I shoot them for crossing onto my property.

In a rational world, while they did break the rules by trespassing, I am 100% at fault for shooting them because that was a choice I made. There is absolutely no reason that their walking in my yard would compel me to shoot them. Only in those absurd American states where the NRA buys out the legislature would anyone even pretend that the couple was to blame for their own murder.

Being part of the chain of events that leads to a crime does not make one responsible or to blame for the crime. Blame can only be attributed to parties that are knowingly in control of the events of the crime. Bullies are not in control of being murdered by kids with no rational concept of right and wrong, just like scantily-dressed women are not in any way to blame for getting raped by men with no rational concept of what sexual consent means.

"justifiable homicide" Who is to blame the one who shot last. (implying anyone who got shot at* first) *missing or hitting

No. As I said in my original post on this side-track, the blame for escalating a conflict is 100% on the party that escalates the conflict. The bullies at Columbine are guilty of bullying, sure, but the choice to shoot up random kids lays 100% on Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. No amount of bullying ever warrants taking an innocent life.

I do agree with of what you say.

 

[NightmareExpress]

I'm a bit of an artist, and as a result I believe that any subject is viable to be represented in an artistic medium.
I think that the prospect of making a game based around such a thing is interesting, though admittingly controversial and risque given the times we live in where fire-arm control is an ever pressing issue and the fact that such events indeed happen every so many years. But anyway, I guess it would be necessary to set some things straight that may be easily misunderstood regardless of clarification. In real life, there is no good guys and there is no bad. There's simply conflicting ideals and cause/reaction. I feel as though neither the shooter nor the victim(s) should be glorified or demonized, as they are all a victim of circumstance in the end. So with all that out of the way, here is my take on the issue.

1: You play as a close friend of the shooter(s). You get to witness the treatment that they receive on a daily basis, and their gradual decent into being alienated and desolate. You initially play as the shooter(s) when they are children and everything is normal, then switch over to their friend as they enter high school. However, I don't believe you should be able to play as the shooters or any law unit during the shooting itself. When (or even if) the shooting happens, you are either a parent at home or the close friend at school.

2: The game could be a top down rpg, a visual novel or even a 3D survival horror-esque game. Of all the possible ways to make this game, while preserving the genuine (and frankly, disturbing) nature of the event, I feel as though those three could best convey the raw emotions that occur during the situation and should be felt by the player.

3: Choices and multiple endings. To better be realistic, there should be ways to avoid the calamity all together. The one question that many people ask following a real school shooting is "how could this have been prevented?" and the game should be able to provide a few of those answers. Be it convincing other students that they aren't bad, getting the faculty to set the bullies straight, telling their parents to search their room the day before the attack...it would almost be like real life wherein a multitude of choices can really determine the outcome of things.

I don't know if any such game could exist (you certainly can't say it shouldn't, though), but I think it would be incredibly interesting to play and perhaps serve as valuable learning tool. One might even get some insight to why these tragedies occur rather than choosing a scapegoat that may or may not have much relation to the underlying issue at hand. I would like people to view the credits and be effected in some way. Be it at how awful it is that such a thing happened (including the treatment of the shooter(s)), or how beautiful and meaningful life really is (good ending).

In the hypothetical event of me ever making such a game, that's how I would probably do it.

 

[Kopikatsu]

It's funny, because I just played through the first level of Painkiller: Black; Battle Out of Hell. The very first stage was an Orphanage, where all of the enemies were children except for the boss (A Butcher) and the mini-boss (A Nun). You could blow off the heads of toddlers, and they would run at you while pouring blood from the hole in their chest where their neck used to be.

Seems too legit to quit. Wonder if there was outrage over that.

 

[Dagda Mor]

I think the important thing here is that you play as the shooters, and show them from a more human and tragic perspective than just reducing them to psychotic monsters, because these shooters are still human, and they're shooting up these schools for human reasons. I'm not trying to say that people who shoot up schools are justified in doing so, but I think that seeing the situation from the perspective of the shooter might help to prevent more shootings.