My game idea was a isometric top down shooter, the main point of the game would be to cause as much destruction as possible, the setting would be in a suburban american town (not in an actual or based on any real-life town), you would control a depressed emo kid and you would need to do various objectives to progress through the levels (ideas I had were blowing up a church with hand grenades,lighting a teacher on fire,and running over a Liberal Protest with an SUV), all while massacring authority figures with various weapons, I do not endorse any of this stuff and it would be wrong to do in real life but im just wondering if I could get in any actual trouble for this, this game would be a minor experiment and would be anywhere from free to $10.00 and would not be reflective of content I would put in the games of others.

I'm personally not offended by this. However your idea sounds very similar to the games Hatred and Postal.

Like any other 'art', whether or not it's "too offensive" comes down to why you're making it in the first place. If you're trying to make some kind of point, then the level of offensiveness is probably intentional and "too much" might be exactly what you want. If it's meant as a "lol it's funny to do offensive stuff", then that kind of humour will fall flat with a lot of people (myself included) and if your game gets any traction, it'll likely receive a lot of heat from people who really don't find it funny, and a lot of support from people who share the sense of humour or like to push boundaries.

I think the part you need to be careful with is not so much the level of offensiveness, but how you handle and justify that content. If you say "I want to explore these experiences in a safe way, create something introspective, make a point, etc" then that's one thing, but if you handle something offensive as if it's a joke, or pass it off as "lol, just kidding, just a joke, just an experiment, just a prank", then you'll likely experience very different reactions.

As usual, if you need to ask, it most probably is.

In this occasion I am going with "yes" even after a more in depth look at your idea. Sure, shooting dudes in the face has been a staple in gaming for decades.

Killing unarmed civilians however, depicting school shootings and stuff like that will not sit well with most people in the best case, get your game black listed in some countries in a slightly less good case, and get you sued worst case.

I would REALLY think long and hard about making your game about "edgy" subjects like these, unless you want to gamble for getting away with it for the additional publicity your game might get thanks to the controversy. If you just do it for the "being edgy and stuff" thing, well, maybe find an edgy subject that has nothing to do with killing civilians in a real life setting. Let the emo kid suffer in his own psychological hell without taking it out on the general public, or transfer the whole thing into a fantasy world where people will be more forgiving with stuff like this.

Hatred comes to mind too. If it's out there and highly offensive and people get upset by it, guys like me will buy it just to support your right to make it. I bought Hatred when I heard different morons in government suggest banning it in different countries. I'm an adult and despise with all my being those that believe they know what is best for me or others.

But as Tom pointed out, there is always the chance you could get sued or sell very few copies to make it worth while. Now if you don't care about making money, more power to you.

I thought about Hatred too, and honestly, I played and loved it. The plot is surely not a masterpiece, but it was fun to play, the graphics was pretty good and the overall experience was enjoyable. I literally stopped watching all the videogame websites that gave the game a 4 just because it was "pure violence".

Going back to the original question, if you make it good enough, which is not easy, you'll surely have a lot of criticism and bad advertisement, but it's up to you to make something good out of it. As a general rule, I'd say that you should do what you want with your game, as long as you can motivate your choices.