Upper school students can still email their names and grades to [email protected] to join this year’s first game of Assassin, organized by game masters William Lee ’14 and Jonah Blume-Kemkes ’14 as well as Social Committee.
Signups opened March 10 and there were more than 250 by the end of the weekend.
The game is scheduled to start the second week of April, after students return from spring break.
Each player’s goal in the game is to sneak up behind his or her assigned target and say “bang” while touching the target’s back to assassinate them.
The assassin then assumes his or her target’s original victim, and the winner is the last player alive.
Students played two rounds of Assassin last year, organized by Happiness Club leader Kenneth Kim ’13.
Some rules changed from the first round to the next, during which players could complete various challenges to obtain immunity bands that guaranteed each wearer safety for one day.
Kim used the game’s Twitter account, @HWAssassin, to announce the number of assassinations for each day along with these challenges and safe zones in which the immunity bands worked. Lee and Blume-Kemkes will post Twitter and Facebook updates for this year’s games.
After complaints from teachers, Kim also declared that any classroom where class was in session was a safe zone for the second round.
Specific rules for the upcoming round will be released in the next two weeks.
Lee said he and Blume-Kemkes started working on getting the game set up and school-approved in fall.
Kim appointed the two to organize this year’s games because they were “Points of Contact,” who helped Kim keep track of players’ statuses in last year’s second game. They plan to change the way safe zones will work for this round, Lee said, and for the game to be over before Advanced Placement testing begins.
“I think that [this game] serves as a facilitator of fun in a relatively stressed student body,” Lee said. “Its purpose cut down to its essence is none other than kids running around and having fun.”
Kim said that he is glad the tradition is continuing.
“By the time Assassin 2 came out, I wanted it to stay as my stress-relieving (or inducing) gift to the upper school students of the future,” Kim said. “I really hope that Assassin 3 is the best round of Assassin yet.”
