Photo courtesy of Pixabay.
Among the most popular games people are playing this season is Among Us: a game of deceit and lies. Your friends can no longer be trusted. The only person you can trust in this game is yourself.
The premise of Among Us is as follows: there are usually ten players and among these ten are (generally) two impostors. The remaining eight are crewmates, whose job is to complete their tasks while trying to figure out who are the two impostors. People who are voted out by the majority of players or killed become ghosts; they can finish their tasks (if they were a crewmate) or sabotage (if they were an impostor), and follow whomever they want with the ability to pass through walls and move faster than the living crewmates. The two impostors’ goal is to kill all the crewmates until they are outnumbered by the impostors. If the crewmates have good deduction skills or are lucky, they may be able to win by ejecting the imposters. Or, they could win simply by finishing all their tasks if the two impostors are killing them slowly.
Here are some tested play strategies that will help you win, whether you’re a crewmate or an impostor. Keep in mind that most of these techniques are for players who use voice chat while playing the game.
For both impostors and crewmates: Remember where you are and where you have been. This isn’t a specific play technique but just an overall tip that will come in handy during pretty much every meeting you encounter. You can lie, of course, as this is a game of deception. However, it is pretty risky to lie about where you were, especially if you are saying that you were in an area that has at least one person there. It can be done, however. In general, only lie if you’re the impostor because there’s generally no reason to lie as a crewmate.
If You Are an Impostor:
So, you’re an impostor. You’ve probably been waiting a few games for this very moment, so I’m going to make sure you have a fighting chance. Here are some moves that have proved to be successful.
1. Easy: Trap a lone crewmate in a room by closing the doors, kill them, and vent to another room. This is one of the most used strategies as an impostor, but it can fail. Make sure that you never vent into a room that has any crewmates to witness you venting as only impostors can vent. If all the room options are occupied, stay in the vent. It’s not the ideal scenario, but always stay in a vent if you’ll get caught otherwise. This strategy is super easy, just don’t get caught.
2. Easy: Double kill with your other impostor. A double kill is when two impostors kill crewmates at either the same,or around the same time. It’s typically better for this to happen in the same room with both impostors, but it can also occur as part of the above technique, when both impostors have found a lone crewmate and kill them.
3. Easy: Never kill anyone people are suspicious of. This is a fairly obvious tip that a lot of players don’t follow. If you’re an impostor, you want the suspicion to be anywhere but you. If people are beginning to suspect someone, encourage them. Don’t be too encouraging, though. Bring up any doubts you have about their story. You can easily win the game this way, by following suspicious people and killing anyone near them, then pinning it on them (but make sure you say that you weren’t there, because the more you lie, the harder it is to keep up all your lies).
4. Easy: Call an emergency on the opposite side of the map from the place where you killed someone. This allows you to get away from the scene of the murder and allows you to have an alibi witnessed by other people.
5. Medium: Follow another crewmate around for most of the game. Leave them on occasion, for a very brief period of time. Do not, under almost any circumstance, kill the crewmate you’re sticking with. They’re providing an alibi for you whenever a dead body is reported, so obviously if they die fingers are going to point to you. Be safe with this and don’t leave them for too long.
6. Medium: Stack kill. When there are a bunch of crewmates on top of each other, such as in the beginning of a game, kill a crewmate in the stack. Make sure that you’re in the stack first, or you’ll obviously be caught. The easiest time to do this is during an emergency or during the beginning when everyone is doing card swipe or keys. Usually everyone will vote to skip here (meaning no one is voted off this round) unless there’s a lot of evidence pointing to a specific player.
7. All levels: Remember where you are and where you have been. This isn’t a specific play technique but just an overall tip that will come in handy during pretty much every meeting you encounter. You can lie, of course, as this is a game of deception. It is pretty risky to lie about where you were, especially if you are saying that you were in an area that has at least one person. It can be done, however.
8. Difficult: Frame a crewmate. You can do this either through just raising suspicion (pretty easy but don’t get too cocky about it) or you can physically kill crewmates in an area where someone is and then claim to have seen them in that area. This can backfire quickly, so be careful. Serious players in a lobby will ask you to 50/50 if you make allegations against someone. 50/50 is when a person making allegations against another crewmate is killed alongside the person they are accusing, often with the accused being ejected and becoming a ghost.
9. Difficult: Call an emergency meeting in order to rid the game of dead bodies that are still in the place where they were killed. This causes everyone to not know where the crewmates were killed and thus makes it much harder for people to be suspicious of anyone. But they may become immediately suspicious of you if you call an emergency meeting for little reason, so that is why this move is highly risky, but with great reward.
If you are a crewmate:
I don’t have many words left, but here are some important tips that may help you win as a crewmate.
1. Have an alibi. It isn’t only impostors who have to remember where they are and what tasks they have been “doing.” You still need to remember your tasks and the locations you have been, or else you will seem suspicious to the other players.
2. Remember where people were around you. The most common way people refer to the other nine people in the game is by the player’s color, so remember which colors you are seeing throughout the game. Say you’re doing a task in Security (a specific room) and you see Green there as well. Now you know where Green is so if a meeting is called and someone claims to have seen Green at the crime scene, you can fight back.
3. Try to stick with someone. Sticking with just one other player could get you killed, but it could also keep you safe because an impostor isn’t going to kill someone who is just with one other person unless the other impostor is there as well to double kill. Sticking with someone else also gives you an alibi which will give you some protection against being wrongfully ejected as a crewmate.
So that’s it. Those are the tips and strategies that may help you win multiple rounds. Among Us is available on mobile and on PC (on Steam). If you want a truly immersive and entertaining game, try voice channels on Discord, where all ten players can speak to each other in meetings and before games begin. No matter if you play with voice chat or just the in-game text chat, please be kind and considerate of your fellow players. Among Us is pretty unique in that there is nothing you receive from winning. The game is purely for fun, so please don’t cheat. There’s no point and it ruins the game for the other players who want a clean, fun game. Don’t get mad if the impostors win through deceit, that is the point of the game. Stay safe camels, and happy gaming!
