“Among Us” is such a great game that it’s become popular all across the galaxy. Whether you’re on Youtube, Twitch, or just looking for memes, you’re sure to come across this hit new mobile game.  “Among Us” may seem to have come out of nowhere, but the truth is it has been out for a while and slowly snowballed its way to the top, replacing what seemed to be everyone’s new favorite game: “Fall guys.” 

Most people have just jumped onto the “Among Us” train and don’t know much about it. Well, that’s what this article is for.  Here you will learn about “Among Us” so you can go from novice to expert. (You can skip over certain sections if you already know what they contain.)

What is “Among Us” and how do I play it? 

Imagine this: You’re an astronaut on a ship and you find out that an alien shapeshifter has hidden among your crew. Its single goal is to de-spawn all of your crew. You can either fix the ship and travel back home before everyone dies, or you can try and throw the alien impostor out through the airlock.  “Among Us” is a murder mystery game that you can play with a group of 4-10 people. 1-3 of those people will then be chosen as the impostor(s), all the other players become crewmates. The imposters will look exactly like crewmates to other players, but fellow impostors can differentiate each other due to the glaring red name that only appears on their screen. The crewmates must run around completing a multitude of tasks, which are randomly selected, such as, but not limited to, swiping a key card in Admin, emptying the trash in storage and O2, and refueling the engines. The only problem is that the impostors are also running around, killing off the crewmates every few seconds. Whenever someone comes across a body, they can call a meeting (imposters and crewmates can execute this). During a meeting, everyone gets to discuss among themselves either who they think the imposter might be or present any other evidence someone might have that can lead them to reveal the identity of the imposter. Impostors are just as likely to tell everyone false information. 

During meetings, everyone is brought back to the central table of the cafeteria (except for Polus where everyone is teleported to the office room) a small screen appears similar to this:

Using the chat bubble in the top right everyone can explain their arguments. Everyone is then allowed to vote on who they think the impostor is and whoever has the most votes will either be thrown into space, thrown into lava, or thrown off a very high building (depending on which map you’re playing on). The crewmates win if they either successfully throw out all the impostors or if they complete all their tasks. The Impostors win if they kill all the crewmates or if the crewmates don’t fix the oxygen or reactor sabotage.

Why “Among us” blew up now and not earlier.

It may have seemed like “Among Us” popped up out of nowhere, but that is simply not true. In fact, according to SensorTower  (a website that tracks the downloads of popular apps), “Among Us” hit its first million downloads in January,  just 7 months after it was released.  You may have also seen that “Among Us” used to have an average of 2.3 players logged in at any given moment but that was only a couple of months after “Among Us” was released. Exactly one year after the game’s birth, June 15, 2018, it had an average of 74.8 players, and then in July it more than doubled to 186.2 players on average. Now “Among Us” boasts over 100,000 players logged in.

So  “Among Us” was eventually going to rise anyway, but the pandemic did give “Among Us” a significant boost. With everyone cooped up in their homes, restless, we were trying out new games every other day. From there, it wasn’t hard for “Among us” to slide its way into the spotlight.

Crewmate Advantages

Cameras:
Cameras are only available in The Skeld and Polus. They allow you to see certain areas of the map with no error.

Cameras in The Skeld are placed in every hallway except for the bottom two hallways leading to storage.

Cameras work a bit differently in Polus though. Since the map is bigger, there are 6 cameras instead of four. So you have to click through each camera view and can only see one camera at a time. Cameras in Polus are only placed on the exits to different rooms so you can barely see inside of them.

Admin Table: Admin Tables are located on every map. 

They bring up a map of whatever map you’re playing on. There are two downsides though. It doesn’t show exactly who is in what room it just defaults them all to yellow. And it only shows if someone is in rooms not a hallway or outside (outside is exclusive to Polus).

Door Logs: Remember how I said earlier that Mira HQ doesn’t have a camera system? That’s because it is so small and compact that it would be too easy to win using cameras. So instead the devs opted for another solution: door logs. The main attraction of Mira HQ is the upside-down Y-shaped hallway in the center. Now there are sensors at each entrance to the Hallway. 

The door log tells you exactly who passed over each sensor so that you know what part of the map they are on. It is extremely difficult to use correctly though because it shows everyone’s information at the same time.

Vitals: Polus has the exact opposite problem as Mira. It’s wide-open spaces and randomly closing doors make it easy for impostors to win. So it has an EXTRA tool: vitals. 

Vitals allows you to see exactly who is alive and who has died. They won’t show you where but this can help you to identify self-reports.

Visual tasks: These are tasks that show a visual animation that all players can see. Impostors cannot perform these, so if you see someone do this, it means they are 100% a crewmate. (these can be turned off along with confirmed votes, and vote reveals) 

There are 

The lights stay on after being activated. So this visual task can only confirm 1 person.

“Among Us” Gameplay tips and tricks.

For Crewmates:

Tasks aren’t everything– Don’t always be so focused on doing one task after another. You’re much more likely to win by catching the impostors, so look at what your fellow astronauts are doing and where they are. Sometimes you might catch someone spreading false information during a meeting.

Be smart about your surveillance– When you want to use the cameras don’t immediately rush to the camera room, an impostor might see you heading there. Instead, check out a few different rooms and then head to your destination. If you think someone is being suspicious on cams, get off of the cameras for a second and then hop back on. You might catch them in the act.

Don’t complete visual tasks without a witness– In “Among Us,” certain tasks display an animation. The impostors have no way to replicate these animations, so use it to confirm yourself as a crewmate. I would also recommend having more than one person watch you or else you might give the impostor(s) a free kill.

Don’t vote on 7 and 4 people but don’t skip on 6, 5, and 3– If you have 2 or more impostors left you should not vote on 7 because you only have a 2/7 chance of getting it right and if you get it wrong the impostors just have to call a reactor or oxygen sabotage and then they each kill one person. If there is one impostor don’t vote on four for the same reason. You should not skip on 6,5, or 3 for the same reason because it just set the impostor(s) up for victory.

For Impostors:

Doors are underrated– The door sabotages are scarcely used in “Among Us,” but they are very useful. If you want to make sure you can get a kill without anyone seeing, you should wait until there’s only one other person in the room then shut the door, kill, and vent away. Simple!

Admin is more powerful than you think– Admin is a great tool to use for both impostors and crewmates. In “Among Us,” knowing everyone’s location is a key to winning the game. Luckily, there is the admin table, it tells you everyone’s exact location, on the downside, it makes everyone the same color and you can only see people that are in certain rooms, not the hallways. That said it can help struggling impostors pickoff crewmates that are alone, and it can help confused crewmates keep tabs on everyone.

Don’t kill in the “No-No Rooms”- You should never kill in a room that has 3 entrances. The more entrances a room has the more ways traffic will pass through and catch a glimpse of your dastardly deeds. In The Skeld, these rooms are The Cafeteria and Storage. In Mira HQ these rooms are The Cafeteria and the middle hallway. In Polus, these rooms are The office, The Laboratory, And The entire left-section of the map.

Use your Emergency Meeting– The Emergency meeting button is a really useful tool. As soon as it’s pressed everyone is brought back to the same location and it clears all bodies. If all the impostors have already killed then go press the button to get rid of all evidence. Sure, It resets your kill cool down, but if you just killed recently then it’s not that big of a loss. Plus it’s not like you would need your emergency meeting for anything else. Just be smart about it. Most groups choose to only have 1 emergency meeting per person so don’t use it immediately, only use it if you did a risky kill. Also, you must have an alibi for pressing the button or you will seem suspicious. This works best in Polus because you can just say you saw someone died on vitals but on other maps like the Skeld or Mira you need a different one since those two don’t have a vitals monitor. I like to say that I panicked or that I thought someone was chasing me. Be aware though, if you play with the same group of people they will notice if you use the same couple of excuses.

Vents are not as good as you think– Many people use vents to get away after a kill and while they are alright for escaping they can still get you caught. Since crewmates can still see into other rooms, a watchful one will look for vents opening and closing. That’s right, even though they can’t see who came out of the vent they can see crewmates can still see the vent animation and they can just as easily travel to the room where they saw the vent open and find you. So be careful when you vent.

What’s Next for “Among Us”?

Originally InnerSloth was planning to release “Among Us 2” but as usual, they kept gravitating back to “Among Us” so “Among Us” 2 has been officially canceled, but many of its features are being added to the original game, including, colorblind support, Hats, and pets show up on the meeting screen anonymous voting, and more. They are also creating a new map that will be based on “Fleeing the complex” From the Henry Stickmin collection ( A completely different game also by InnerSloth) But wherever InnerSloth decides to take “Among Us”, I’m sure all true fans will follow.