Developers InnerSloth released a game called “Among Us” on June 15th in the year 2018. When “Among Us” was first released in 2018, it was not anywhere near as popular as it is in 2020. There have been speculations as to why the game is all of a sudden gaining all this popularity. One of the speculations is because with everyone in quarantine, there has not been much for people to do so they went searching for things to watch or play and eventually, they stumbled upon “Among Us.” Another speculation for the game becoming popular is recently due to every streamer playing it. When big streamers play it, more and more people find the game by watching their streams. The last speculation behind the popularity of the game is that the game is easily accessible. It costs only five dollars on Steam and it is completely free on mobile devices.

“Among Us” is a game that consists of 10 or fewer players. The game consists of three maps players can play on. Before the game starts, the players load into the game lobby where they can choose between 12 different colors that they can make their character. Players can choose between eight pets they can have by their side but when the player is murdered, their pet sits where they died. There are also 67 different hats players can choose from and nine clothing options the players can choose for their character that might even match the hat a player chooses. There are three roles when playing “Among Us.” The first role is imposter. Most players love being an imposter and what the imposter, or imposters, do is murder the crewmates before they complete all of their tasks and before the crewmates vote the imposter(s) off the ship. The second role is crewmate. When a player is a crewmate, they have to complete tasks before the imposter(s) kill everyone. Finally, the third role is being a ghost. When a player dies, they become a ghost and that means the players who die can go through walls and finish their tasks if they want, or if the dead player was the imposter and they got voted off, then they can help the other imposter only if the game has two or three imposters.

For “Among Us” like any other game that has been made, it has really great things about it that the people who play it love about it. Some things players love about the game could be that players have something to do while they are crewmate and that is the tasks. Another thing that players love is being the imposter because it is really fun for so many people. Maybe a player loves secrecy when it comes to video games and that would make this game really fun. Another thing a player can love about the game is the memories it can create and how it gives the players chances to tell funny stories that happened when they were playing.

“I love that I can defeat people in the game. I love that I can beat my friends and get away with it because it’s really funny when they find out it’s me as well. I love blaming someone else and watching them get voted off. Another thing I love is having a game have two imposters when one is me and the other is one of my friends so we get everyone else out. I like when there’s a ton of tasks in the game so that it doesn’t get boring. If I finish early, I also like to do cult rituals (cult rituals are not an official thing to do in the game, but it’s something me and my friends made up),” said sophomore Crissy Biser.

“My favorite thing about “Among Us”  is the secrecy. One, two, or three players are imposters who will try to defeat the rest of the team by ejecting them off the ship or just ending their virtual lives; you have to be on high alert and watch your surroundings. There are things you can use for clues: the admin room where you can see how many people are in each room in order to track movement, vitals to check if a double kill was made and who was together, and security cameras. All those help give clues to expose the imposter and it is so much fun to figure it out. The imposter role is what I most consider most fun. There are 10 people on the ship and you and your partner must get rid of them all. To do this, you have to lie, turn people against each other, and that is all possible with few words. You can disable lights to get someone alone, go inside a vent to hide, and wait for a player to be alone. It makes you nervous and sweat but it’s so much fun,” said freshman Diego Blanco.

“During my first time playing “Among Us,” I was very slow with understanding how the rules worked. When someone called an emergency meeting, I was typing way too slow to get a message out. After getting a message out basically saying I have no idea where I was, everyone had nearly voted me out for being “sus” and “way too quiet.” That specific round definitely didn’t last long,” said senior Keely Crane.

With a game like “Among Us,” there will be things that people don’t like. Now that the game is a really big thing, it is guaranteed to have those players who like to ruin other player’s experience and start hacking the game; that can be a big reason players wouldn’t like the game. Another reason some players get annoyed with the game is that when there are two or more imposters, one of the imposters can tell everyone else who the other imposter is and basically stab the imposter in the back just to be mean and ruin the experience. Some players do get really annoyed by that tactic, but they don’t let it ruin the game for them.

“The game ‘Among Us‘ is a very fun game and I love almost everything about it. There can be one to three imposters amongst the crewmates. The crewmates have to either complete all their tasks before everyone gets defeated or kick all the imposters off the ship to win. The only thing I don’t like about ‘Among Us‘ is when people cheat. People cheat in this game a lot. If two friends are playing together and one dies and tells the other friend who the imposter is and the other friend tells everyone else, it ruins the game. You are supposed to find out the imposter by catching them doing something suspicious like venting or faking tasks. However, it’s not fun if you cheat and don’t have any evidence other than, ‘My friend was killed by green.’ That is cheating and ruins the game,” said sophomore Kira Thomas.

“I really enjoy it when I get the chance to play impostor. Aside from it being a nice break from the crewmate’s gameplay loop, it’s just fun in its own right. I really enjoy having to come up with game plans on the fly and trying to remain deceptive and sneaky at the same time. I think playing as the Impostor is really a fun test of wits and I enjoy it a lot, but there are some things I really hate about ‘Among Us.’ I really hate when we’re supposed to be doing tasks and my teammates just stay on cams the whole game. It really bugs me and slows the whole pace of the game down,” said senior Braedon Meadows

This game is accessible to everyone including students, staff, teachers, parents.  A few ways someone can play “Among Us” is through Steam, an application on PC or desktop that holds more than 6,000 games. Some games are free to play on Steam, but players have to purchase some of the other games. “Among Us” currently costs five dollars on Steam. “Among Us” is currently free on mobile so if a student or teacher is interested in checking the game out, they can test it on mobile for free before paying for it on PC.