Starting March 21, a handful of 99 seniors were joined into the annual Senior Assassin, where each student is given a target and two weeks to eliminate their target. Despite the game seeming like the wild west, there are a handful of rules to ensure the game runs smoothly among all.
Senior Emma McGargill is the game’s coordinator, meaning she has been solely responsible for creating a rule for every scenario. The rules prohibit eliminating your target in schools, workplaces, places of worship and extracurriculars. Alongside this, swim goggles can be used to protect against elimination, and each player must provide clear footage of the elimination for it to count.
McGargill has spent her second half of her senior year monitoring and managing the game’s players, but it has been no easy task for her.
“The first part of it was kind of difficult because they wanted me to start it a week early, which I was fine with, but setting up the rules and making sure I have a rule for every situation was kind of difficult, but once the game started running it was pretty smooth sailing from there,” McGargill said. “The most exciting outcome overall is how it’s connected the senior class; I feel like everyone has been talking about it, especially when the targets first dropped. We were pretty disconnected, but now we have a topic to go off of and we’re all making connections because of it.”
With a game full of 99 players, there was no telling how far each person would go to secure their win, with a final payout of $900 to a single winner. Senior Aaron Heiss has been moving on what some call “demon time.”
“My favorite part was the rush of trying to get someone out, hunting them on the app, the satisfaction when you get them out,” Heiss said. “It was really fun, it brought me and my friends closer together because everytime we hung out we’d wonder if someone there had us, it’s just a really fun part of the experience of being a senior.”
Despite the long reign of Heiss, he had to be eliminated. With one emperor down, another takes control. Senior Anne Dunne has continued to stay in the game, making it down to the final four. Dunne falls nothing short of one of the best assassins in Millard West history.
I’ve been helping others get their target out, and having my friends help me,” Dunne said. “My favorite thing is just the competitive drive that it brings. I’ve connected with more people by trying to strategize and team up together.”
As the game came to a close with only four left, the remainers decided to split the cash prize. While the game ended rather anticlimactically, this year’s game was nothing short of legendary.
