“Senior Assassin”—while the name may have seemed unfamiliar just months ago, this game has now become popular among the current graduating class at Summerville High. 

Senior Assassin is a game through the app Splashin wherein each player has a “target” who they try to assassinate with a water gun. The catch is that each player is also the target for someone else in the game. 

For this particular version of the game at our school right now, each participant paid five dollars to join the game. Since the game has over 70 players, there is over a 350 dollar cash prize on the table for the winner of the game. 

Some of the specific rules for the game being run at our school are that participants may not assassinate each other during school hours and that those who wear goggles are protected from being assassinated. The assassin has to record their target being eliminated—these videos are then uploaded onto the Splashin game and Instagram. 

At our school, the one running this game is Charles Yaley, who explained in an interview how he got the idea to run this game. 

“I had seen it on social media, other schools are doing a similar senior assassin thing and so I figured that the game could bring our senior class closer together…I thought a lot of seniors would enjoy it,” explained Yaley. 

He continued with details on how he made the rules for the game and whether he thought it has been going well or not. 

“I think it’s worked amazingly and everybody has had a great time playing…I wrote all the rules myself, I kind of piggybacked on some of them that I had seen before,” shared Yaley. 

The seniors Beyond the Cave interviewed seemed to agree with the positive sentiment towards the game, sharing that they were having a fun time playing. 

“I think it’s really fun. I think it’s cool that Charley put it all together,” shared Ellery Stewart. 

Kendall Grandbois also shared that she thought the game had been fun so far, but that at that time (April 24) had been unsuccessful in eliminating her target. 

“So far, yeah it’s fun, I haven’t gotten my target yet,” stated Grandbois. 

Various seniors even invested in the premium version of the app, which lets the player see the locations of all players to see if they are being followed and send anonymous messages to their targets. The premium version of the app is priced around three dollars weekly. 

Angela Lares was the first one to successfully eliminate her target, Wyatt Castongia. She shared her thoughts on the game as a whole along with a vague retelling of her strategy. 

“It was really sad…I did do some tactics that made it seem like he was not my target…At first I felt guilty,” shared Lares. 

She also explained that she was feeling some paranoia because of the game, a sentiment echoed by some of the other players interviewed by BTC. 

“It’s fun, keeps you on your toes,” shared Cooper Knobloch. 

The seniors also shared some of their failed attempts at and struggles with assassinations with Beyond the Cave. 

“Her dad won’t answer my texts. He left me on read,” shared Mateo Murphy on the topic of struggling to communicate with his target’s father. 

Knobloch shared that, at the time of his interview (April 24), he had already experienced two failed assassinations. 

“I got on the roof and he still had his goggles on,” shared Knobloch. 

He would go on to successfully assassinate his target, Lukas Soto, later that same night, achieving the fifth elimination of the game. Ellery Stewart shared a story about one of her failed attempts at an elimination, which would ultimately go on to succeed, becoming the eighth elimination. 

“I miserably failed at getting my target. At least it was a very fun experience. I basically showed up, hopped some fences, snuck into the goat barn, hopped a few more fences and then hid behind a car. When he was walking up, I went to squirt him with my water blaster and my blaster took a second and in that time, he started running. I chased him in the field filled with weeds and pokey stuff and I toppled over the propane tank,” shared Stewart. 

For updates on this fast-paced game, BTC would recommend taking a look at the Instagram page for the app, @summ_seniorassassin2024.