The Game I played was Among Us. Target audience are older teens or young adults ranging from 15-25. The game was created by InnerSloth and can be played on iOS, android, PC and console. I chose to play on mobile (iOS).
During my experience playing Among Us, I became more hesitant in my decision making and my communication changed from being more reasoning based to more emotional. The main mechanics of the game are killing which can be done by the imposters, and they must kill enough crew mates until they cannot be voted out; voting, which can be done by both the imposters and the crew mates must vote out all the imposters to win; and doing tasks which can be done by the crew mates, who win if they do enough tasks. These mechanics create the dynamics of deception, bluffing, and gaining / losing trust. These dynamics created the aesthetics of fellowship as you gain trust with players and challenge to successfully eliminate the opposing team. The game is similar to mafia with imposters/mafia who can kill and villagers/crew mates which must vote them out. What makes Among Us unique is the movement within the game and the ability to call emergency meetings and report bodies which adds another level of complexity.
While playing as an imposter I became very hesitant in my decision making and there were many times I felt like there was a good chance to kill a crew mate but I hesitated. I feel like the game amplified my overthinking and cautiousness and this was due to the game’s voting structure. When playing with randoms it felt like it was very easy to accuse someone or get accused and then voted. Because of this I was extra cautious before killing since if I was caught or even slightly sus, there was little room for bluffing or lying. While playing as a crew mate I focused a lot on my tasks and in meetings I did not talk as much. I noticed in meetings I also was more hesitant similar to when I was imposter, especially in critical moments where someone had to be voted. For example, when there are 6 people remaining, someone had to be voted otherwise the imposters would win through a double kill. In these moments I found it really hard to vote someone especially since most of the time I was lacking a lot of information. The set time limit to vote in the game and difficulty communicating in chat made it even harder for me vote and caused me to be more hesitant.
A crew mate is falsely accused and voted off without evidence.
While my indecisiveness was amplified during the game, my communication style changed from being more reasoning based to emotional during the game. Especially while playing with randoms it felt like I couldn’t trust what anyone was saying many times I guessed or voted purely off vibes. There were also many times it was 50/50 between two players who were both accusing each other. This happened a lot when someone would report a body claiming to have seen someone kill, while the person they were accusing claimed that they had self-reported. Reasoning was made even harder when playing in random lobbies since almost all of the lobbies had modifiers such as 2x speed or the Viper imposter role which made bodies disappear a couple seconds after killing. Kill cooldowns for many of the lobbies I played in were also greatly reduced to as short as 10 seconds making it even harder for crew mates. While there were definitely smarter people than me in my lobbies who were able to correctly reason and communicate who the imposters were, I found it more difficult and tended to rely on my emotions or feelings more.
I am stuck in a 50/50 vote.
One critique I had of the game is that the crew mates never win from completing their tasks. I think this is due to the crew mates not having a large incentive to do tasks, a lot of the times there were players who only ran around and didn’t complete their tasks, and also the balancing of the amount of tasks needed to be completed is off. This could also be intentional from the game designers since the fun of the game is from killing and voting people rather than doing tasks.
Lying in games such as Among Us is not morally wrong. When playing games that require lying and lying is a part of the rules, the players of the game all accept that by playing the game they could be lied to. On the other hand, there is still lying that breaks the rules of the game. For example a crew mate that intentionally helps the imposter by lying about information or their role. In that case lying would be morally wrong, so lying is only morally acceptable in a game as long as it follows the rules of the game.
