Among us: the Latest Global Sensation – Savannah Collis
‘Among us’ is a game that has taken the world by storm, people from across the globe have been playing this game daily and it’s almost all anyone can talk about. The game initially seems slightly complicated, and I too was confused when I first started playing, the way it works is similar to that of ‘wink murderer’ (if you ever played that in primary school). There is a maximum of 10 players (each being able to choose their avatar colour), and 1-3 of them are randomly selected to be ‘imposters’. The players who aren’t imposters have to do tasks such as fixing the oxygen tank or repairing lights. However, it’s not that easy as while the players try to do so the imposters are secretly sabotaging the tasks, and trying to kill players without getting caught. Every time a body is reported, or a meeting is called players must vote for who they think the imposter is. The player with the most votes is ejected and it is revealed whether they were the imposter or not, in order to win you must complete your tasks or eject all the imposters before they can disrupt you.
As strange and complex as this game may seem it is one of the most popular games, currently with an average of 197,244.2 new players within the last 30 days, it’s even coined new lingo such as ‘sus’ meaning suspicious. Is this game just another antisocial mind-numbing phase or is it actually bringing people together and making them more social? The addictive nature of the game would lead one to believe that it is a highly antisocial ordeal and to a degree; yes, you could say that it is the case, as most people play it in house or on the bus when they could be talking to each other. However, having said this, ‘Among us’ allows you to play with your friends, so the imposter could quite literally be among us, it’s become a talking point for people and a great way of connecting as you don’t have to be in the same room to play, which is rather beneficial given the current COVID circumstances.
This game has a multitude of unwritten practices that people just abide to, for example voting whoever they’re told to, out. Another conformity that everyone does is that they have one player that they always think is acting ‘sus’. I asked people who they thought was the most ‘sus’ colour and in first place came red; this was the majority’s view, then a few said orange, then pink and in last place was lime green. This is a rather interesting concept as the imposters are randomly assigned in each game and so the colour of the player holds no weight as to how ‘sus’ they are however when asked people said those were the colours they were most likely to vote for if they didn’t have clear evidence on who the imposter is; so perhaps don’t choose red next time you play? Another interesting concept people have adopted within the game, is the idea of ‘throwing people under the bus’ so to speak. If it is hard to tell who the imposter is, people tend to choose other players at random and accuse them of being the imposter to the extent of encouraging other players to vote them off. It is unclear as to why people do this when they’re not the imposter and the simple answer I got was “I don’t know really, it’s just funny”.
The good thing about ‘Among us’ is the ability to play with a range of people, for example on bus journeys students in year 7 play along with students in year 12 and so there is a good integration of students of all ages which is nice as that may not have normally happened especially now given the times we’re in with year group bubbles. So all in all I would say that this game is very good at bringing people together. However, it is easy to get sucked into the addictive spiral of this fun game and so I do urge you to not be completely consumed by your phone and to talk to the people among you in real life.
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