My source is a current college student who claims to have played this game in high school. From what I have been told, a game master sets up the game known as assassin. A list of names of those involved in the game is written down. The person after you on the list is the one you try to ‘kill’ or eliminate. You are designated an object to use as a killing weapon. In trying to kill a person, the killer would attempt to make the victim touch the killing object as that would eliminate the victim from the game. This game made the players very paranoid and on high alert against touching unknown objects. Can get more complicated with the addition of a specific location in which the victim had to be killed. Touching the object anywhere else would have no effect. Because the game was played on such a wide scale with several hundred involved, the game was soon banned by the school. The notion of playing a game involving ‘killing’ one another was discouraged likely for its intrinsic connotation as well as the distracting nature of a game that puts its players into widespread paranoia, though all in good fun. The rules of the game are spread by word of mouth; typically by the introduction of upperclassmen to lowerclassmen.

“Assassin” appears to be is a teenage folklore game that allows players to have the adrenaline rush of fear of being ‘killed’, but without any real consequence. The notion of the school discouraging such a game and it being played regardless of that fact brings light to a well-known phenomenon of the teenage disestablishmentarian mindset and ‘fighting oppression’ within society.