My family has recently become obsessed with a video game.  To be honest I haven’t really played many video games recently, but loved them when I was younger.  When my sister and I got our first Super Nintendo System we were hooked.  But as the years went by the excitement for me slowly faded along with my hand-eye coordination.  I started to feel my age when I played a game recently and thought to myself “It’s too fast and I just can’t do it”.  Yikes have I really gotten to that age already?

This has all recently changed when I had heard some podcasters I listen to talking about a game called Among Us.  I didn’t think much about it until soon after my oldest daughter was playing a new game, and she was using some of the same “terms” I had heard on the podcast like “Imposter” and “Sus”.  Sure enough she was playing the same game.  Now being the diligent parent I am, I was curious to investigate what she was playing so I created my own account and we started playing together.  It only took one game for me to get hooked and now it’s become our new nightly routine after homework and before bedtime.

First let me give you a bit of background on this game.  Among Us is an online multiplayer “Social Deductive” game created by American game studio Innersloth.  Basically it’s like a murder mystery in space.  My inner Agatha Christie fan may be part of why I like this game so much.

 

The game takes place in Space on a Spaceship and players are randomly assigned one of two roles.  Most are Crewmates, but either one, two or three (depending on that games configuration) are assigned as an Impostor.

The goal of the crewmates is to try and identify the imposters, and eliminate them all while completing various tasks throughout the ship.

There is a map within the game that players can view to see the different rooms of the ship and where their tasks are located.

But beware when you are doing a task some of them cover the entire screen so you cannot see if an imposter enters the room to try and take you out.

This also means you may come across a recently deceased player in a room and will want to report it immediately, or depending on your strategy maybe you want to leave it for someone else to find.

When a body is report this sparks a meeting of all players back in the cafeteria.

At the time you can chat with other active players to try and deduce what happened.  Any deceased players cannot be apart of the chat but are allowed to watch so they can see how the rest of the game plays out.  A common term players use is “Sus” meaning someone was doing something Suspicious or Suspect.  In the chat it’s very common to see someone say “Orange was acting very Sus” which could be true, or maybe the imposter is trying to get you off their trail by changing the focus to another player.

Once the players have chatted about who they think may be the imposter(s) a vote screen pops up where you can make your selection.  Or if there is not enough information you can opt to skip the vote.

But be careful if the imposter is doing their job well you may end of voting the wrong person out and they are tossed off the ship.

As I mentioned a little earlier, any player that is either killed by the imposter or ejected from the ship due to an incorrect vote, they will become a ghost.  Only other ghosts can see each other, but you are invisible to the active players.  So you can follow who you think may be the imposter or you can help the crewmates complete all the outstanding tasks to help win the game.

The imposter will win if they are successful in killing off a majority of the crewmates while also sabotaging the ship.  The crewmates win by either completing all their tasks before the imposer kills everyone, or if they identify the imposter and vote them off.

It’s just a fun whodunit.  I remember back in High School my English class read Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap which became a favorite of mine, but I also enjoy her other play And Then There Were None.  Both take place in a secluded locate with a set number of characters that are all slowly being killed off, and the mystery is on to try and figure out who the killer is.  This game is the digital version of those plays and I just immediately fell in love with the concept.

On a recent visit to The Penny Depot website which I have really come to enjoy their fun and unique penny designs, I came across these two new coins.  Just weeks ago I’m sure I would have just passed by them not giving them a second thought as I just didn’t understand what they were about.  But on this recent visit as soon as I saw them I called my daughter over to see them and she said we needed them for our collection.  I couldn’t order these fast enough and was so excited when they did arrive in my mail just the other day.

This game is free to play and thankfully for me doesn’t require much skill or gaming dexterity.  It’s more about just wondering around a ship trying to solve simple little puzzle tasks while figuring out a mystery.  I’m sure I won’t be playing this forever, but for now I really enjoy being able to experience this with my daughter.

Have a fantastic week and as always Keep on Pressing!