An addictive game of sabotage, intrigue is Among Us
If you are tired of pandemic life, consider joining AOC, countless others in virtual world of space, time, and murder
Photo by Dave Winter. Illustration by Lucy Marco.
What if House Park during Taco Shack was the setting for an Among Us game? Would the imposters have been from Mac or Anderson and could they have been members of the Mac band?
March 28, 2021
Does being trapped in a virtual space ship completing your maintenance tasks while imposters are out to sabotage and kill you sound interesting? If it does, the new game Among Us created by InnerSloth is the one for you. Among Us, released in 2018, is an online multiplayer social deduction game played with 10 players available in the app or on PC.
“I first heard about the game in September from a bunch of friends who wanted to play it with me,” junior gamer Grace Van Gorder said. “It started out as a pretty small game and at first it was really annoying because the servers were constantly overwhelmed, but it’s grown a lot since then.”
Within the game, there are eight crewmates and two imposters. The crewmates go around the map completing tasks to fill their taskbar and win. While they do this, the two imposters try to kill crewmates and sabotage the map. If a crewmate reports a dead body or someone calls an emergency meeting, crewmates come together to debate. From this, the crew can either accuse someone which causes them to get kicked out or, the group can skip the vote altogether and continue the game. Be careful, this is the crewmate’s opportunity to win by voting both imposters off, but the group can also vote out innocent crewmates.
In the end, if the amount of crewmates is equal to the number of imposters, the imposters win. There is a multitude of different tasks to complete in the game. Some of them include shooting asteroids, disposing of garbage, fixing wires, medbay scanning, and imputing codes.
Although the tasks aren’t too challenging, the imposters make them difficult to finish without interruptions, especially when your friends are involved.
“My least favorite task by far is having to calibrate the reactor,” Van Gorder said. “It’s so difficult to get it just right and when I’m with friends it’s hard to focus.”
Completing tasks is one of the ways that the crewmates can win. If they can complete all of their tasks before the imposters are able to murder their peers, the crewmates win and are able to escape safely. As for senior Helen Heustess, she’s very confident in her task-completing abilities.
“I’m the best at tasks, there is no one that can out-task me. I always finish my tasks, and I always finish early. No task is too hard,” Heustess said.
Among Us have received a lot of hype recently. Everyone is talking about it and people are playing it non-stop.
“When I can, I play every day after school,” Van Gorder said. “A lot of my friends stream on Twitch and since this game is really collaborative, it makes for good content. Unfortunately, you can only play with ten players right now which stinks because if you don’t get in with your friends quick enough, you might not get to play.”
One appealing factor about online games is the ability to play with people all around the world. You can meet new friends or even connect with old ones.
“I haven’t met anyone directly through the game, but I have a discord server, and a lot of the time people on the server will invite me to voice calls where I’ve met a lot of cool people at Mac, and I’ve been able to reconnect with old friends from middle school,” Van Gorder said.
For Van Gorder, it has been a great outlet for entertainment during the shutdown. “It deserves the hype. It’s so fun and creative and it’s really a great game for quarantine when you can’t talk to your friends in person. Honestly, with how boring things are now, being able to fake kill my friends is probably the most interesting thing I do.”
Among Us has inspired memes, TikToks, costumes, political jokes- the list is endless. People are having fun with it which is nice and refreshing to see on social media platforms after a wave of political and serious informative posts following riots, an election, and movements of change.
Honestly, with how boring things are now, being able to fake kill my friends is probably the most interesting thing I do.
— Grace Van Gorder
Van Gorder’s favorite media influenced by the game are the memes.
“I saw a really funny meme the other day where Donald Trump handed this guy a piece of paper, and it said ‘Where?’ and the caption was like ‘Me in the emergency meeting after someone caught me killing red,’ and it made me laugh really hard.” Van Gorder said.
Another fun aspect of the game for its players is the customizability of your characters. Players have found this a fun way to express themselves, yes it is via little astronaut characters, but happiness is happiness during this scary time. Different ways to customize your character are with hats, changes in color, and even people can even customize their characters for the holiday seasons. Heustess was able to decorate hers for Halloween.
“My character is usually brown with the cowboy-ish hat, but it was the black color with the plague doctor mask for quite a bit. I really liked that look,” Heustess said. People find identity in their characters.
Players spend so much time in this little world that the appearance of their characters defines them.
“I am always pink!” said Van Gorder.
“Sometimes I have to be yellow if pink is taken but if pink and yellow are both taken I’ve been known to leave and find a new lobby.”
Now Among Us one of those games that involve skill. Players have to be able to have crime-solving skills and be able to slide under the radar while being the imposter. You can’t trust anybody and you always have to stay alert. While being the Imposter, you gotta play it off and can’t get caught, when you are a crewmate, you get to solve the mystery in your head.
I usually lean more towards sabotage and not killing. I almost never get the imposter.
— Helen Heustuss
Heustuss found the risky nature of being the imposter intoxicating but doubts her abilities.
“I like the excitement of being the imposter, but I’m not very good,” Heustess said. “I usually lean more towards sabotage and not killing. I almost never get the imposter.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, famously known as AOC, is a New York congresswoman. Back in October of 2020, she played Among Us with popular influencers, YouTubers, and streamers, which collected a massive amount of viewers. She did this for publicity for re-election campaigns to appeal to younger audiences.
“I wish I could have seen AOC’s stream,” Van Gorder said. “I think it was likely to reach younger voters or just younger people in general. It was really really cool and it made me feel like she was one of us.”
Among Us has made its way onto phones through its simple charm, and its fun ability to transport you from reality.
“It’s a cute, fun game that allows you to play with other people,” Heustess said. “We all need some social interaction and fun right now.”
