Super Columbine Massacre RPG! Cut From Slamdance

A new report from game blog Kotaku has indicated that the controversial Super Columbine Massacre RPG! has been pulled from the the 2007 Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition (GGC), marking the first time a game has been pulled from the event as a result of “criticism or outside pressure.” Last November, the game was noted to be a finalist for the event, but the game's creator Danny Ledonne has now confirmed that his game will no longer be a part of the annual competition, which will be held alongside the Slamdance Film Festival from January 18-27, 2007 in Park City, Utah. According to the report, Slamdance president and co-founder Peter Baxter contacted Ledonne Thursday evening, and noted what while he felt that the initial decision to include Super Columbine Massacre RPG! within the competition was "consistent with Slamdance's philosophy but somewhat naive," and that the eventual decision to remove the game from the list of the event's finalists was necessary by "deeply flawed." "I don't want to paint them as the villain in this," commented Ledonne in response to his game being removed from the Slamdance festival. “I don't think the real issue is a couple of guys at Slamdance who decided to reject my game, it's the larger pressures placed on them.” With the removal of Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, 13 independently designed video game finalists remain as the finalists eligible to win the competition, which is spread across three broad categories, including the Grand Jury prize which aims to award one developer over $5,000 in cash and prizes. These titles cover a variety of genres, from documentary to platform puzzler. Games competing for the prizes include Base Invaders from Seven Sigma; The Blob from Banana Games; Book and Volume from Nick Monfort; Braid from Number None; Castle Crashers from The Behemoth; and Cultivation from Jason Rohrer. Other selections include Queasy Games' abstract shooter Everyday Shooter, flow's flOw, Waking Games' Once Upon a Time, Steve Taylor's Plasma Pong, Pedestrian Entertainment's Steam Brigade, Toblo/DigiPen's Toblo, and Hampus Soderstrom's turn based fighter Toribash.