A hugely popular game, Among Us can be quite obtuse to newcomers. The game offers no tutorial when beginning, nor any kind of tips or instruction when playing. Instead, the player is left to discover how the game works by themselves. Well, that was until you landed at this beginner’s guide for how to play Among Us!
Despite launching back in 2018, Among Us is still a hugely popular game. This comprehensive guide to Among Us will teach you everything you need to know to get started with the game. The game is available on Steam, iOS, Nintendo Switch, Android, Xbox and PlayStation consoles.
How to Play Among Us – The Characters
Among Us is a 5-10 player game. At the start of a round, players will be randomly assigned a role, either becoming Imposters or Crewmates. The Crewmates are given the goal of either finishing their tasks or finding all the Imposters. The Imposters have to kill the Crewmates until only the same amount of good and bad guys are left, or to have the timer on a Sabotage run out (more on that in a moment).
Playing the Imposter
Imposters receive special abilities to accomplish this task. They are allowed to use the ventilation system to travel between exits and rooms, as well as trigger Sabotages. Depending on the map you are playing, “vents” have different power levels. Some maps have well interconnected systems, while maps like The Skeld only allow you to travel between two or three exits.
There are several Sabotages options, ranging from win conditions like Reactor and Oxygen, to information disrupting like Communications and Lights. Moreover, Imposters can close doors of different rooms. On some maps, Crewmates can open these doors by solving a puzzle. On others they will have to wait out the duration.
Playing the Crewmate
Crewmates apply pressure to the Imposters by doing tasks. Successful completion fill the taskbar on the top left of the screen. Once completely filled the Crewmates win. The Crewmates can also win by voting out the Imposter(s) during each voting segment, which can either be triggered by pressing the red button in the spawning room, or by finding a corpse and hitting the horn. A powerful tool to find out if someone isn’t an Imposter is to have them do “visual tasks.” Tasks such as shooting the asteroids in weapons will trigger an animation that only Crewmates can activate. If you want this to be part of your game, you have to switch them on in the settings. More info on that below.
How to Play Among Us – The Rules
The first step to a fun experience will be to set ‘house rules’. Many players tend to play Among Us a little differently. The proven and universally accepted rules are as follows:
- Do not talk outside the voting times. Try to mute yourself.
- Don’t stack on top of each other too much (it makes winning as Imposter impossible).
- Do not ‘stream snipe’ the people you are playing with.
- Avoid screaming over each other.
Other points of discussion will be whether you allow “metagaming”. That is, if someone can accuse another based on the sound of their voice, or finding their in-game behaviour out of the ordinary. Metagaming can give flavour to the game experience, but can also provide an additional barrier for newcomers. Some also like to discuss if it is okay to slack on tasks. Typically however, as a Crewmate your tasks should be your primary goal.
How to Play Among Us – Match Settings
Once you have decided on your house rules, the host of the lobby has to create a game. Here, the rules are once again highly flexible, though the goal of them should generally be to maintain an Imposter to Crewmates win rate of 50%. Therefore, the optimal settings don’t exist and have to be adjusted based on your group size and other rule agreements made.
Tailoring Your Game Experience
The default recommended settings are a good place to start. After a few matches, you will soon find out what works best for your group. You can refine the settings as you go, but the most effective values to play around with are discussion time, kill cooldown, vision range, and the number of tasks the crew have to solve. Be aware of what the different values do to the communication of your group. Less discussion time will mean that people will get more frustrated in not having had an opportunity to share their information, but too much information also shuts down Imposters.
Crewmates vs. Imposters
The most important value is to find the right ratio of Imposters to Crewmates. It is recommended to have one Imposter up to seven Crewmates. Once you have eight Crewmates, you can add an additional Imposter.
For the best play experience it’s important to have someone who will keep track of the flow of the game. Adjusting values after each match is important until the right balance is found. A lobby host that has the finger on the pulse of the players will contribute a lot to the enjoyment everyone will be getting out of Among Us.
If you’re enjoying Among Us or are looking for more tips and tricks, let us know in the comments below!
You must be logged in to post a comment.