How Among Us Succeeds as a Social Deduction Game
By: Joshua Gad
Tags: Social Media, Live Streaming, Gaming, Streaming, Features

How Among Us Succeeds as a Social Deduction Game

And why it’s more effective than games like 1986’s Mafia

Among Us is one of the most played games in the world right now. A few months ago, nobody would have guessed it would be so successful. This online take on the “social deduction game” was originally released in June 2018 by developer InnerSloth. Like Mafia, Werewolf, or other variations, the goal of the game is about figuring out which one of your friends is actually the killer. The game has since become so popular that developers have canceled their plans for a sequel and decided to update the game instead.

The developers attribute this success to Twitch livestreams, which has continued to this day along with a ton of YouTube content.

In a pandemic where many people have been isolated or quarantined for an abnormal amount of time, a social game that you can safely play with up to nine of your friends is an incredibly valuable and fun experience. For streamers, the game has served an important role in connecting streamers to communities.

Before this game shot up the charts, streamers would mainly interact in groups of four (maybe five or six at the very most). Not only that but the content would probably be limited to, well you know… the game they were playing. There wasn’t much room to actually watch these personalities have a genuine conversation.

But Among Us crosses all game streaming categories: big content creators, FPS, strategy, or variety streamers, all get to finally connect and converse on stream instead of in private. I suspect this will be a good thing for content creators to get to know each other more instead of being divided into their sectioned off communities or bubbles. All in all, it makes for some great videos.

But enough about the streamers, let’s talk about the gameplay. There are a ton of options to customize but usually boils down to a 10-person lobby featuring eight crew members vs two imposters. Like Mafia, the goal of the imposters is to kill enough crew members until the number of crew members is equal to the number of imposters. Basically kill and don’t get caught. The crew has to vote out the imposters before it’s too late.

What makes this game more enjoyable than the traditional “close your eyes” games is that Among Us happens in real-time. If you are around when a kill takes place, you can witness the kill and use that information to help convince your fellow crewmates. But the game isn’t as simple as “walk around and figure out who the imposters are.”

You see, the crew has tasks to complete as a secondary win condition, but the imposters have some tools to stop the crew from doing this. The first is to sabotage facilities, like turning off the lights, causing a reactor meltdown, or turning off communications. In addition, imposters can also disappear into vents and use them to teleport around the map.

All this culminates in an experience where you need to build trust with people and watch where people are going, all while completing your tasks as crew. Or if you’re an imposter, you have to sneak around, lie, and thrive on misinformation, while building trust with key members to avoid being voted off.

The voting phase is called when a body is found or the emergency meeting button is pressed. During the meeting, everyone can talk with each other, exchange information, and cast their votes. When the meeting ends, everyone stops talking and goes about their tasks or their evil plans.

Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

For an online version of Mafia, it is a clear improvement. Gone are the days of randomly guessing, although you can still do that if you want. If you play smart and pick up some strategies and map knowledge, figuring out who the killer is can make you feel like a real detective. And especially in a pandemic, where a large group of friends can gather in a voice chat and play a game together, it’s an incredibly fun and unique experience.

For a game that didn’t have much of a release, Among Us is a surprising online ruleset for the Mafia game type.