MDA – Among Us

(Note that this blog exceeds the word requirement; the actual MDA analysis occurs in the fourth and fifth paragraphs. I got into the blog-y aesthetic!)

A game that I’ve enjoyed a lot, especially over remote learning, is the game Among Us. Although the mechanics that create the game’s feeling and ambiance are, in my opinion, relatively simple, the amount of ways to play the game adds appeal and replayability; the game feels fresh every time I play it with a new set of people.

At its core, Among Us is a game about fellowship (as a crewmate, where you must complete tasks with the rest of an anonymous team), and outwitting others (as an impostor, who must sabotage and prevent crewmates from completing tasks at all costs). The game also has its own degrees of challenge and immersion, most of which involve people either yelling at each other or not being able to complete their tasks (just hold down the lever for five seconds, dangit!).

But how does it manage to achieve these aesthetics? The game, at its core, comprises movement (via a joystick on mobile, or keyboard/controller mappings for PC or console) and a small set of other simple controls depending on the player’s faction (crewmates get to perform activities around the ship that constitute “tasks”, and impostors get additional options to create discourse among the remaining crewmates).

I argue that as a social deduction game, most of this interesting gameplay stems from how Among Us offers unique mechanics for the process of killing-off. In Mafia, Werewolf, or Town of Salem, one player dies instantly every night due to a majority vote. In a minigame called TNT Tag in Minecraft, players die based on skill and ability to run away from the players with explosives. In Among Us, killing-off happens more sporadically; a mechanic provided to the impostor is the ability to kill the player in close proximity by clicking a simple button. Yet, building off of this mechanic is another that forces a cooldown. The button can only be used again after a predetermined time (around 30-60 seconds).

Because of this mechanic, the impostor does not have the power to kill at any time they want to. It offers the possibility of a wide range of dynamics: to kill and sneak away (the popular choice), to kill and immediately report (”self-reporting”), to kill and frame somebody else who’s walked in on the crime, or perhaps even involve luring somebody away to not be caught in the act. This allows the player to feel deceptive, sneaky, and like they’ve outwitted their opponents as the rest of the crew point fingers at each other.

To illustrate the power of these mechanic-influenced dynamics, imagine the game if it didn’t have a kill cooldown: impostors would feel like God. They would have the ability to charge through the ship on an onslaught for an easy win or camp around a dead body to prevent others from finding it. Suddenly, the game is more horror-like. Although I haven’t play-tested a version of this game, I’d imagine it’d invoke more fear, being more about avoiding the impostor rather than trying to look around for the impostor’s victims. In my eyes, removing this one mechanic of a kill cooldown would be to remove the fun of Among Us itself.