Among Us, Part 4: The How

When analyzing how a game is designed, we have to think about what is the intention of the game’s design and how all aspects of it work towards that aim. What is the intended player experience of Among Us? Well, without a design document to base our discussion around,  though we can make a good assumption based on how the game is marketed.

Much of the marketing, both official art and trailers, leans heavily into comedy and lighthearted mystery and suspicion. The over the top death animations, happy-go-lucky music overlayed over the trailers depicting in-game murder, and the cute and simple art style for both the corpses and player characters all work towards that idea of a lighthearted experience.

In addition to the art and tone of the game, much of the design aims for accessibility while not becoming monotonous after time. For new players, the tasks are difficult, but not impossible to learn. No written instructions are given, but the visuals for each minigame for the tasks are enough so that the player can infer what they have to do. The tasks are easy enough to not deter all new players, but difficult or interesting enough to not be entirely monotonous to every player (I know many people who enjoy completing tasks and are good at them, though after hundreds of rounds, I still can’t get the admin card swipe right). The game also aims for accessibility from the start by its price- or lack thereof. On mobile, the game is completely free and on Steam, the game is around five dollars. The monetary gate that sometimes keeps out a good amount of players is not present in this game, allowing for its popularity and accessibility to most players. This is also made better because people do not need to be on the same platform to play, that is to say that people on mobile can play with people playing from their computer with no issue. This allows any match up of players to join a lobby and enjoy the game

How does the game foster community?

Another remarkable thing about Among Us, is the community it fosters. When it comes to hidden role games like Among Us, having a strong community is absolutely vital to its success. To give some clarification, hidden role games are games in which players are given…well…hidden roles- think Mafia, Werewolf or its spin off One Night Werewolf, or Town of Salem. Usually the game relies on deception and questioning in order to discern the roles of your fellow players. Games such as these rely on conversation and social deception to be successful by their very nature. Among Us does this with its chat feature, of course, but also refines the chat feature by making it accessible only if a dead body is found, someone suspects deception, or if the player is dead. This encourages players to pay attention to the nonverbal communication of their fellow players (watching how others move, do tasks, interact with others) and then incorporate that into their analysis when it comes to verbally communicating via the chat feature. This makes for a more dynamic social experience compared to games that only rely on text to foster community. Another way that Among Us encourages community beyond single games is the lobby feature in which players have the option to stay in the same lobby after a game. This allows players to make friends in random matches and then stay with those friends between games. People are able to debrief after games together, congratulate each other if they one, or discuss the events of the game. Of course players are not forced to stay and socialize with others, but the option to do so helps to foster community. 

How is it successful, from a hidden role game perspective?

So I talked about how a community is vital to a hidden role game, but what else makes a hidden role game successful. In addition to fostering community, which is vital in games based on social deception,  we must consider how the game balances the different roles available to the players. Take Among Us, for instance: the imposters are able to kill the crewmates, travel between vents, and sabotage systems within the game along with doors, allowing them to corral and influence the movements and actions of crewmates. Considering this, it seems that the crewmates would be at a significant disadvantage, however this is not the case. Despite being vulnerable to being killed by the imposters, crewmates are equipped with systems in the games such as security cameras, maps, and sensors throughout the game’s world that can give them vital information about who is alive and where they are. Using that, plus their investigation skills and ability to eject suspicious players, they no longer become helpless to the imposter’s onslaught.

Among Us has it easy when it comes to balancing roles since it only has two to consider, but take more complex hidden role games such as Town of Salem. To keep things simple, Town of Salem has three types of roles: Townie, Mafia, or Neutral. Each of these categories have around ten roles each, each with their own unique abilities and purposes within the game. Some roles are simply meant to protect other players from being killed, some are purely meant to help investigate who other people are, and others are designed to help the player kill and get away with it. It would take a long time to break down the 20+ roles in this game, but Town of Salem’s designers work to make sure no role is overpowered or not. That being said, players still believe certain roles  in the game are unbalanced and make their own group of roles in custom lobbies so they can achieve their own sense of balance even if the designers didn’t account for how every role will interact. Among Us has a similar feature in which the host of a lobby can edit values such as player speed or vision, the number of tasks, or the cooldown at which imposters can kill. So while Among Us is rather successful on its own of making a default balanced game mode, it is flexible in its design and allows for customization in its lobbies to let its players make their own sense of balance, which is absolutely vital for a hidden role game.