The school-wide Assassin game will not continue for the first time in six years because no seniors stepped forward to organize it.

In the game, students are assigned targets who they “kill” by sneaking up, touching their back and filming them on a student-developed app.
After “killing” their targets, students are assigned a new target until there is only one player standing.

Last year, Justin Rose ’17 and James Kanoff ’17 moderated the game, with over 500 people in the official Facebook group. Since no one volunteered to lead the game this year, however, the tradition couldn’t continue.

“It sucks for people who really liked the game and enjoyed it,” Ben Block ’19 said. “It’s just a game at the end of the day but I guess [Assassin] is insensitive with everything that is going on.”

Without an official game, students have started their own independent games. Chronicle Assistant Sports Editor Ryan Albert ’19 organized a small Assassin game through an online site and had 28 members playing at the start.

“When it got to spring break and after and the app still hadn’t come out and I hadn’t heard about it, I decided it would still be fun to play even if it wasn’t with 300 kids,” Albert said. “I talked to a few of my friends, and we made a Snapchat group and just played a low-key version of the game.”

Albert said that he had looked forward to the game for much of the year because of how much he had enjoyed it in the past.

“It’s fun to have this game in the back of your mind 24/7,” Albert said. “There are safe zones but since you theoretically don’t know who’s going after you and when they could attack, you’re constantly on the lookout, rather than a game for just a period or after school. It’s less of an intensive commitment but it’s always fun.”

Sirus Wheaton ’19 said that the smaller size of the junior game allowed for more discretion.

“It’s all your friends and it’s kind of controlled,” Wheaton said.