Earlier this month a club appeared at DHS with an unexpected focus: Temple Run Club.

Temple Run is a single-player video game where an adventurer runs from monsters guarding an ancient temple. The game continues infinitely until the character gets caught. As the character runs, it faces multiple obstacles which can be avoided through tilting the phone and swiping. The goal of the game is to get as high of a score as possible, which is based on the duration of the run, which gets increasingly quicker.

Club leader Levi Pittman discusses how he came up with the idea. 

“What happened is we were in advisement one day, and it was Gigi [Fortuna] who was playing [Temple Run] …  We all played it as kids. You know, if your parents wanted you to shut up and be quiet, they gave you their phone, and you would play Temple Run,” Pittman said. 

Despite its origin as a joke, the Temple Run club has accumulated more than 50 members in its Google Classroom and has brought students together, co-leader Sam Yates said.

“It literally was the first time any of us had talked to each other since third grade, but we were not a close friend group until we started playing temple run, and we were like, ‘you know what we should do, as a joke? Start a club.’ And then we did,” Yates said.

Club co-leader Gigi Fortuna later touched on the newfound connections between students as a result of this club. “It’s just a great space to hang out and talk to people. We are kind of a mixed group. All of our other, normal friend groups just kind of get here,” they said.

During a regular meeting, club members play Temple Run individually and compete against each other on a group leaderboard, but the leaders have developed other activities as well, with usually a subtle connection to the app. 

“Today we’re making bracelets, which is going to be the most organized this club has ever been. They’re leather cords and old beads and they look temple-y,” Pittman said.

For the future of the club, Fortuna is unsure, but they have ambition. “Hopefully we can do an obstacle course or some fundraisers,” Fortuna said. 

Yates ended with a jovial and foreboding note. “We were all pretty sure it was going to crash and burn. There’s time yet!”