It’s 7:50 in the morning, and you’re slowly stepping out of your car in A lot. You feel someone watching you, but you don’t see anyone. All of a sudden, someone emerges from behind your car holding a phone and water gun eliminating you. Will you choose to buy back?
High school is four years of your life you’re never going to get back, but seniors all over the country are making it unforgettable. Senior Assassin is a game of skill, patience and money, allowing seniors to bond right before they graduate. The outline of the game is simple. It involves duos targeting each other weekly, with access to their opponents locations. They try to track them down and eliminate them with water guns. Players must wear goggles to avoid being eliminated when they aren’t at school, practice or work.
In order to participate in the game, you must buy in. This creates an incentive to participate and play hard, and some teams even pay a larger price to buy back in, so they have a chance at a larger sum of money.
One participant, Laney Smith, says the game forces everybody playing to step out of their comfort zone.
“The idea of it is really different, it’s alluring. It’s a way to bond with your classmates before graduating,” Smith said.
Smith says that one of the hardest parts of the game is tracking down targets while they’re vulnerable. She explains how some teams are hard to get and always have their goggles on, but you have to learn your target’s routines and places they frequent in order to catch them off guard. Purge days are another obstacle to overcome, as wearing your goggles can’t protect you from being eliminated and you have to leave the house for at least two hours.
“Purge days are harder, but manageable. Getting your targets out is the hardest part,” Smith says.
In order to regulate the game, members of the DFA (Dedicated Fan Association) are administrators on the Senior Splashin’ app, which is the app used to play the game. The app lets players see their opponents location, which updates every 10 minutes. Teddie Kirkland, a Senior Assassin admin, has already been eliminated but still has to manage gameplay.
Responsibilities of an admin consist of cheating prevention, tracking player locations and ensuring that eliminations are carried out correctly. All eliminations must be filmed to document that they actually occurred, and the admin makes sure that all the videos are clear and valid.
“I really like the game (Senior Assassin) because it feels like a big community, with all of the seniors participating. I didn’t really like how some people took the gameplay too seriously, and wouldn’t let it be a game,” Kirkland said.
Another obstacle that the game proposes is the lack of popularity of the game among the school faculty. Bringing any sort of weapon, including a water gun, onto school grounds allows for a punishment of up to five days of suspension. Lincoln Southeast principle Tanner Penrod sends out an email every year reminding seniors that the game cannot be played on Southeast campus, ending the email with: “Knights, do not jeopardize your spring season over something so easily preventable!”
Administrators allow for the game to happen, just not anywhere on school grounds. Separating gameplay from school activities keeps players and faculty alike happy and out of trouble.
For next year’s seniors, Kirkland recommends players to stay attentive and into the game, while remaining lighthearted and unserious. Although the game is far from over, there have already been 113 people eliminated, while there are still 7 teams still in the game. The prize money currently is 2,270$, motivating players to play harder than ever before.
