Parents Of Parkland School Shooting Victim Release Game, The Final Exam, Hoping To Foster Change
The parents of Parkland school shooting victim Joaquin Oliver have released a video game, The Final Exam, with the goal of raising awareness and ultimately enacting legislative changes regarding gun control. Manuel “Manny” Oliver and Patricia Oliver lost their 17-year-old son in the February 2018 shooting, which left 14 students and three staff members dead, and another 17 injured. It remains the deadliest high-school shooting in US history.
The Final Exam sees players step into the shoes of a student navigating an active-shooter situation. Players have 10 minutes to escape the building–a reference to the fact that the average school shooting lasts 10 minutes–but must also collect pieces of gun-control legislation hidden around the school.
“These halls represent the real-life horrors of hundreds of schools that have suffered mass shootings–places that were promised to be safe for children but were failed by our government,” reads a portion of the game’s official website. “In this game and in real life, gun-control bills are the key to survival. By surviving the game and collecting all the bills, you can demand change and help save thousands of lives in the real world.”