My first experience with Among Us came during the pandemic. At the time, it was a great way to stay connected with my friends through this game. We would all hop on a discord call and play. Within the 2-Dimensional confines of the game
For me, I realized that my communication style would change depending on my role. As a crewmate, I tended to scurry around the map more, trying to finish my tasks, rather than try to suss out the imposter. During emergency meetings, I was always vocal about my alibi and my experiences from the game. In general, I tended to be more vocal, taking up a more detective-esque role within the group. That said, the thrill of the game also led me to sometimes get overly trigger happy. When a bunch of people called my friend, who was playing Cyan, suspicious, I jumped in on the bandwagon and helped vote him out, even when it was later revealed that he was just a crewmate.
Image 1: Me jumping on the voting bandwagon to vote yellow out
The game’s mechanics directly influenced this bandwagon behavior as a crewmate. The time-pressured voting system created an environment where quick consensus often trumps a thorough investigation into peoples’ suspicious activity. With limited discussion time during emergency meetings and the constant threat of either being killed or eliminated next, Among Us incentivizes rapid decision-making based on incomplete information. The game’s visual design also plays a role—with simplified 2-Dimensional characters on a 2D map with limited mobility, I found myself overly reliant on peoples’ movement patterns around the map as evidence for my decisions. Furthermore, the binary nature of voting (where either someone is ejected or no one is) created a sort of psychological push towards taking action rather than voting to skip (abstaining from ejecting someone), even when the evidence is very weak or sometimes nonexistent (people often voted based on whether they felt someone was “sus” or not). These mechanics revealed my tendency to often prioritize group harmony and consensus over critical independent thinking in high-pressure social situations with limited time available.
Image 2: Me doing my tasks in navigation moments before I was killed
As an imposter, my behavior was shaped by several game mechanics. The kill cooldown timer forced me to adopt a more calculated, patient approach to gameplay, which revealed a calculating and strategic side of my decision-making I rarely display in everyday interactions. My decision-making as an imposter gravitated towards minimizing my risk of being discovered through careful timing of kills rather than being overly aggressive with my actions. I was especially able to play more sneakily due to the fake task mechanic—which gives imposters fake tasks to mimic—allowing me to still run around the maps completing tasks, as usual, allowing me to blend in with the other crewmates. I often found myself standing at task locations for realistic durations rather than running around the map looking for kills. Furthermore, the vent mechanic, which allows imposters to quickly move between rooms, allowed me to quickly escape from the scene of a kill to another location and encouraged me to come up with strategies of deception with my alibis. The sabotage mechanics also allowed me to divert attention to another side of the map, making it easier for me to hide a kill and running down my kill-cooldown timer, which bought me time to come up with more strategies. The reporting/meeting mechanics also allowed me to force a meeting and disrupt other players’ activities aswell.
Image 3: Me attempting to sabotage tasks to hide the body of the person I just killed
During emergency meetings, I tended to be less vocal—especially as I usually had less player interactions within the round. This time, when people were calling out other players for being “sus,” I would also jump in as well and call them suspicious and vote them out as well. My rationale behind this was that if I also call another crewmate suspicious, but I’m not the one that initiated it, when they are revealed to be innocent, then no one would suspect me since I wasn’t the person who first put their name on the chopping block, which further echoed the “bandwagon mentality” that I had as a crewmate.
Reflection:
I personally do not think that lying as part of a game constitutes a wrong action. In many games, lying is a core mechanic of the game that players are informed of and consent to at the start of the game. For example, in poker, players are often encouraged to lie and bluff so that their opponents might think they have a stronger hand than they actually do and fold or that they have a much weaker hand and call, playing right into the lie or bluff. Similarly, in Among Us, imposters are encouraged to lie and deceive crewmates to win while crewmates are tasked with deducing the truth from the lies. What makes these games special in how it allows us to lie to our friends is that everyone understands deception is expected within the boundaries of play. Additionally, the ultimate power behind decisions in these games rests in the hands of the players; it is the players that ultimately decide whether to call or fold in poker; it is the players that ultimately decide who to vote out in Among Us so the best way to influence another player’s decision in your favor in these games would be to lie and bluff. This shared understanding transforms what would normally be a breach of trust into an engaging social experience with clear boundaries.
