The game I played was Among Us, which is a social deduction game centered on deception. Created by the indie studio InnerSloth, it skyrocketed in popularity during the pandemic, particularly among players aged 13 to 30. I played it often during my remote freshman year, both with friends and in online events, but I was really curious this time around to see what the dynamics would be like when playing with complete strangers.
What I found interesting from this experience was how drastically the gameplay shifts depending on who you’re playing with and the mode in which you’re communicating. With friends, we would often play over video chat. There’s already a layer of pre-existing knowledge that you have of each other, notably tendencies people do when they lie. As someone known to be terrible at lying, I would feel so much pressure being the imposter, becoming hyper aware of my tone and how often I speak. My default would be to stay silent, but because that would be suspicious, I had to make an active effort to contribute.
With strangers, however, the tone felt quite different. Most of the public rooms were filled to maximum capacity and are extremely chaotic. People are spamming the chat or leaving mid-game, and since communication was limited to text, I would argue that the anonymity made deception easier but also less satisfying. I played a few rounds so I could be both imposter and crewmate. As the imposter, I found that I could stay quiet and fly under the radar because there was so much noise in the chat to begin with, as players are more uninhibited behind text. Without voice or facial cues, I didn’t need to worry about sounding suspicious, so the pressure to convincingly deceive was much lower.
However, because of that, the game’s purpose of deduction based on social behavior felt hollow. Players often voted with little reasoning and nuanced discussion was rare. Perhaps because the players were also strangers to each other, there was little emotional investment, so while it was easier to get away as imposter, it didn’t feel as fun. As a crewmate, I found it hard to track who said what, and given the strict time limit for discussion, voting often felt random. I was less emotionally invested in who the imposter was, and ended up being more focused on completing tasks, not because I wanted to win, but because the aesthetic of Fellowship was largely absent and therefore wasn’t as engaging as playing with friends.
This contrast highlights the importance of players in Among Us to create the fun for each other. While mechanics like time pressure and hidden roles help amplify uncertainty, its success ultimately depends on the engagement of the group. A group that is collectively invested lends itself to a collective storytelling performance, but when the group is disengaged, the mechanics fall flat. The chat constraint, for instance, creates anonymity but at the cost of depth, which is especially noticeable in large rooms with strangers, where trust is limited and voting feels arbitrary. In contrast, voice brings richer social cues and higher emotional stakes, making deception and accusation feel more intense and fun.
As a bluffing game, Among Us centers around deception, which some might frown upon in everyday life. However, I would argue that lying in games isn’t morally wrong because it operates within the bounds of the magic circle where deception is expected and consented to. Players knowingly take on these temporary roles and behaviors that allow deception to become part of the fun. Only when deception causes real-world harm or distrust does it cross the boundaries of the game.
