Among Us

A small, social deduction party game that's had a, let's say, outsized cultural impact. Not my favourite in this genre (Secret Hitler my beloved), nor with the most depth, but its simplicity is deliberate, meaning its quick to get people roped in and playing along in a big VC/Discord call.

Why this game caught on in the way it did, I really have no idea, but the game itself is competent enough - and pretty much any decent multiplayer game can be spun into hours of gold with a good bunch of friends.

Among Us, for all its memes, actually does a pretty damn good job at taking the social deduction genre, which normally ends up being quite obtuse in a lot of ways (like Town of Salem or Trouble in Terrorist Town), and simplifying it to be a much more pick-up-and-play experience, easy to get folks who've never played it at all into.

And I'm speaking as someone who started playing all the way back in April 2020, back when the main selling point was "the guy who made the Henry Stickmin games is also working on this". I actually liked it a decent bit more back then as far as games with randoms go, but in terms of something to play with your friends on game night, I'd still recommend it quite well.

Among Us used to be aight. But now, after few horrible updates, it is totally fucked up. I can’t find anybody playing this game seriously even when I try to play.

when the. when the. when the impostor is...

Memes aside, l've had LOTS of fun with this game, it's very unique, minimalistic for the good reasons, and promotes critical thinking and the use of multiple skills nonexistent in most games.
It must only be played with Discord.
I started playing when it became popular during Covid-19 quarantine. I got to play with friends a few times until l found other players more invested in the game mechanics. It became a very serious and tense game with self imposed rules to make it a lot harder to crewmates for deeply intelligent discussions.

The Positives: it's a highly social game that requires little "gaming skill". It's a matter of reading people's behaviour and reactions.
It's easy to get involved in the match once everyone takes it seriously.
In discord servers dedicated to Among Us you find all kinds of people from all places which is very interesting.


The negatives: You can encounter a lot of racist or xenophobic people in discord but it's easy to deal with them.

IMO developers work very little on improving the game despite its popularity.
1. No Voice Chat... this is complete bull. Public rooms with written chat only do not make sense. It just doesn't. It's completely surreal the level of randomness that goes on in there ironically funny.
This means it's 100% Discord dependant, without this app the game would lose all playability.

Now, this makes the console version completely obsolete, which should not be crossplay with PC-mobile version.
(l'm no expert, in fact l know very little about the process of making games)

2. Quick Chat... this is probably one of the most stupid updates developers have come up with.
This goes against the idea of the game, which is to communicate, to plant ideas on someones brain. It trivializes the whole thing.

3. Bugs... whenever there is an update, the developers react too slowly to adress the bugs. However, l think it's understandable since they are not a big company.
- Killing someone at the same time a body is reported has been a problem since launch...
- Imposters randomly glitches with different sizes, odd movements or visuals.

It's all right as a game, good for some fun with friends and a laugh at "sus" jokes.
I'm not entirely sure what else you'd expect from this. It doesn't have a mathematically perfect concept the way some games do, even if the gameplay itself works fine. No reason to hate on it, nor any reason to make it your favorite game unless you're about 12 years old.