In April of last year, the Class of 2022 — graduating seniors at the time — created and played the Loomis Chaffee Spoon Game, a version of the popular “Senior Assassin” game that designates a plastic spoon as the ultimate weapon. This year’s seniors and post-graduates continued the trend: from May 1 to May 11, around 140 out of over 200 students in the Class of 2023 played the game across campus. Each day, a different “safety” preventing students from being eliminated was announced through Instagram, ranging from wearing socks on both hands, to dressing with a Tropical theme, to “the floor is lava.”

Grace Johnson ’23 took on the responsibility of organizing the event, designating each player’s target and sending them out individually the night before the game’s launching. “The hardest part was sending out the emails as fast as I could, as the whole organizing process took three hours,” Johnson said. She also created and managed @lcspoongame23 on Instagram, through which students were notified of the Safety announcement every night at 12 a.m. and of each time a player tagged their target.

The game facilitated a slate of exciting and suspenseful moments. “Chandler [Coe, my target,] outsmarted me by running far enough away to take the socks off his feet to put on his hands, while I held his UberEats delivery hostage,” Cameron Devenney ’23 said. Many unexpected dormitory check-in chase downs, backstabbings, lunchroom shenanigans, and races around the Quad took place on the Island over the week and a half that the game lasted.

Players like seniors Campbell Brode ’23, Aidan Healy ’23, Alex Fuller ’23, and Makai Tarjamo ’23 led the tagging leaderboards; when asked about early MVP candidates, Johnson nominated Brode as a possible MVP winner. Meanwhile, some players decided to take more defensive approaches. Johnson also predicted that Izzy Balise ’23 could win: “a) she’s never here and b) she’s a demon,” Johnson said.

In just the first six days of the competition, half of the players had already been tagged out — prompting many to think that the game would soon be over — but when the remaining players had settled in, they became more dedicated and the elimination rate slowed.

After getting out within the first hour when making a wrap in the dining hall, Oliver Vulliez ’23 learned a lesson: “[I learned] to love myself and value myself with more than a game,” Vulliez said.

Finally, on Wednesday, May 10, after multiple purges and difficult safeties, Johnson called a day of no safety and the number dropped from 25 to 3. The only ones left after the no-safety day were Balise, Tiger Cao ’23, and Chloe Eng ’23.
Strategy played a large role in deciding who survived and who didn’t.

“I think the best strategy to get far in the game is to know when to play on the offensive, while also being prepared to be on the defensive. The safeties will only get you so far. Narrowing down potential threats is also important, and keeping track of who tags who is also important,” Balise said. She also added, “You gotta be fast.”

On Thursday, May 11th, the final day of taggings took place. Eng took the crown home with two swift kills of the other two finalists, basking in glory.

The Spoon Game was a fun opportunity for seniors to connect with each other as a class beyond their normal groups of friends, as they approach class celebrations at the end of the year. It embodied the enthusiastic and carefree nature of Senior Spring that the class had been anticipating throughout their final year on the Island.