Explanation:
There are 10 crew members trapped on a spacecraft, carrying out menial tasks to maintain vital systems, but at least one of them is a evil crew mat who wants to sabotage their work and if possible, exicute them. What sounds like the premise of a particularly bleak science-fiction movie is in fact the set-up of one of the most popular video games of the year. Developed by a three-person team at Inner Sloth and launched to virtual obscurity in 2018, Among Us has suddenly become one of the biggest games on PC and mobile, attracting more than 85 m players in the last six months. It’s so successful, Inner Sloth recently abandoned plans to work on a sequel, instead piling their resources into the original. No one, it seems, is more surprised about the success of this game than its creators.
When a crew member discovers a body, they call a meeting, at which point all the players are allowed to talk to each other for a limited time. During these discussions, the crew needs to try to work out the identity of the evil crew mate by comparing alibis and reporting on which other players seem to have been acting suspiciously: what was Tim doing so close to the scene of the crime, and why can’t Emma recall what task she was apparently working on? Accusations fly, temporary alliances form and whopping lies are told. Sessions can often descend into anarchic shouting matches, with players frantically justifying their movements around the ship. Then a vote takes place, one player is hurled from the spaceship’s air locker, and the others discover if they’ve just saved themselves from certain death or murdered an innocent workmate.
As the game continues, the paranoia ramps up. Crew members can use security cameras to spy on others, while the evil crew mate can use air ducts to sneak around. Although there are traditional video game objectives to fill – the crew members can win the game if they complete all their allotted tasks before everyone is dead – this is essentially a game about acting; or, more accurately, it’s a game about lying to your friends. (You can play against strangers but it’s not as fun and there are a LOT of cheats out there.) The beauty of the game is the way in which it allows players to exploit the personality traits of their peers, tapping in on the neuroses of anxious players to create plausible guilt scenarios, or flattering egotists so that they don’t suspect you.
