A two-year-old mobile and PC game suddenly at the top of the charts on all the game stores. What happened? Meet “Among Us,” a game that went from having eight concurrent players to having 300,000+ every day. 

Stuck in space with nine other players, players are put into one of two roles: Impostor, or Crewmate. The two Impostor’s goal is to kill everyone else on the ship and lie their way to have a majority. Crewmates must finish tasks in order to win, or they must vote out the Impostors. 

Impostors aren’t only trying to kill the other players, they must sabotage things such as the lights, which reduces players’ vision, oxygen, which makes everybody run to a certain place and type in a code, and many other different ways to add some chaos into the game. 

As players run around the ship, they look for bodies and finish tasks. Every time a body is discovered, players enter a discussion phase, in which everybody talks about what they saw, and try to deduce who could be the killer. 

“Among Us” is a rapid-paced gameplay best experienced with others, preferably friends using a virtual call site such as Discord, or Skype. However, you can play alone, but it doesn’t have the same charm in my opinion, despite it still being addicting and a lot of fun. 

“Among Us” explores social deduction, deception and fast-paced gameplay. However, it isn’t without flaws. Due to its sudden and unexpected popularity happening almost overnight, many players have been experiencing server issues such as being kicked out mid-game, or not being able to get into games at all. 

Occasionally, you will come across a hacker, but luckily this isn’t common, and very rarely happens. When it does happen, players tend to leave the game and join a new one, continuing on as if nothing ever happened. 

Overcome by the sudden popularity of the game, publisher Innersloth decided to cancel the planned sequel “Among Us 2,” instead deciding to focus on updating the current game, fixing issues with the servers, and adding the planned features into the original game. 

According to PuffballsUnited, one of the developers for Innersloth “We have decided to cancel Among Us 2 and instead put all our focus into improving Among Us 1. All of the content we had planned for Among Us 2 will instead go into Among Us 1.” 

Also, the character design is simple, yet recognizable. Simple colors with a spaceman mask, and if you decide in-game, your choice of hat and pants. The characters don’t have arms, adding to the simplicity of their design, and there is no face, just a reflective visor, the only thing to tell each other apart is the color. I think that this adds to the charm of the game, as each character can be customized, but not be too out of the norm, allowing for each person to have their own character despite only having a selection of color. Unfortunately, when discussing, players tend to refer to each other based on their color. This can be problematic for those who are colorblind, as it can cause much more difficulty. 

Despite the small developer team, colorblind support is one of the planned features for the game, expected to be added soon, along with fixes for the servers, and other issues players have been experiencing.  

The rise in popularity for the game can be attributed to the massive amount of YouTubers and streamers who have begun to stream the game with fellow YouTubers, and this is assisted by the quick, chaotic nature of the game, which makes “Among Us” the perfect game for streaming, as games are short and unexpected, and no game is ever the same. 

“Among Us” perfectly balances the quick, random gameplay with social deduction and addicting qualities, to create the perfect game that can be played for one round, or for many hours on end without being bored. 

During these unprecedented times, getting together with all my friends, and yelling at each other to figure out whodunnit, is the perfect way to pass time when stuck inside. The cheap price tag for “Among Us” at only five dollars on PC, and free on mobile devices, allows accessibility to anybody who wants to play and creating a game that truly makes you feel as though it should cost more, as it is definitely worth the price.