But you also have to keep track of every task you are doing, in what order you did it in, and who you have seen where. As a crewmate, you rush around trying to complete every task possible while staying alive. However, while those first few games feel daunting, it does not take long to find your groove whether you are a crewmate or an imposter. I will say, this is a game that has a bit of a learning curve and it is not one that you want to get dumped in as the imposter first up with a group that has played before. It is the combination of the game play and the social game that makes Among Us shine. Also, small things like having a murder countdown mean that the imposter has to be very careful who they kill and where they do it because if you are spotted there is no getting out of it (unless you can talk a big game). The lack of vision is how you can create rooms like Electric that people fear because that makes perfect blind spots. This stress is achieved by when you start the task a big pop up covers a large chunk of your screen, and this is a game where vision is at a premium. However, they are all impeccably designed to cause the most amount of stress possible because every moment you are working on one is a moment someone can sneak up behind you. Or how the imposters can self-report their own murder, I mean that is big-game move but I have seen it work … and also pulled it off myself.Īll of the tasks are simple click, or at worst drag and click puzzles, much like you would see in an early flash game. With most tasks, you can’t tell if someone is working on them or not giving the imposters much needed plausible deniability. Simple design does not mean bad design, but there is nowhere to hide, and Among Us is an excellent example of this. If a dead body is ever spotted, you click the report button and vent the imposter. As an imposter, you need to be near someone, and you can click the die button, and they are dead. Mechanically this is a straightforward game, as crewmate, you run around doing tasks that are simple click puzzles. All of this is very routine however, among your crew, there is an Imposter (or Imposters) whose job is to stop you from completing the tasks by killing you off one by one.Īmong Us is a game that embraces the chaos. Something has gone wrong, and your job is to work together to complete several tasks like refuelling the ship, clearing out the trash, or shooting down some approaching asteroids.
It could be another spaceship, an aerostat military base, or a research station on a planet. So to set the scene, you and your fellow crewmate are on a drop-ship to a new location. I have seen many video games try to capture that feeling but never quite getting there, well that is until today. However, around the table secretly, there are some players whose job is to do the exact opposite. This task could be fighting an evil empire, hoarding your boss’ diamonds, or getting rid of the fascist elements of the government. These are games like Avalon, Mafia de Cuba or Secret Hitler where on the surface all the players are trying to complete a task together. In the board game realm, there is a genre of games called ‘hidden role’ games.