The game I’ve been playing these days is Among Us. This is a Fellowship game that is highly similar to the game we created in terms of faction allocation and discussion mechanisms, but moves differently in terms of faction victory conditions and player afterlife effects. I think Among Us has done a good job in protecting players’ gaming experience and enhancing their post death effects. Among Us is developed by the American independent game studio Innerlslot and can be played on iOS, Android, Windows (PC), and other platforms. The core audience of this game is players aged 20 to 30 (according to data from Headphones Addict*). And our game is a traditional board game, with a core audience of young people aged 15 to 24. Our core audience mainly focuses on adults with a certain social foundation, rather than completely unfamiliar strangers. As a result, there are differences in the various game mechanics tendencies of both parties. This article will analyze how these differences affect players’ social experience.
In terms of core objectives, Among Us has more effectively enhanced the playability of both parties. In Among Us, the victory conditions are that the crew completes the task and the insider kills the crew. The asymmetry of these victory conditions provides a guarantee for both sides’ gaming experience.
For example, as the dominant player in this asymmetric game, players are still unable to directly intervene in the progress of tasks (meaning they cannot completely interrupt or delay tasks). This goal protects the gaming experience of the crew, allowing players to reverse the outcome through their own actions even when the faction is weak. In our game, the protection of players’ gaming experience is clearly insufficient.Our goal for victory in the game is for the good guys to throw out all the bad guys or for the bad guys to kill off a portion of the good guys. This completely opposing game objective will result in players being on the weaker side, with little possibility of turning the tables when the level difference between the two sides is not significant. These differences significantly affect the gaming experience of players, especially for beginners.
In terms of the death mechanism, Among Us has made a breakthrough: the dead can still achieve the faction’s goals and help win. This breakthrough allows death players to generate more unique chemical reactions and simultaneously protect the gaming experience of different players. In our game, when a player is on the brink of death, they can be resurrected by other players. This is also a way to break through the death problem of traditional board games. Our resurrection mainly aims to help more players understand each other and promote communication among players, but there are also some problems with such resurrection. Especially in terms of player experience protection, this mechanism may seem protective, but in reality, due to players’ concerns about death, only those who dare to express their identity tendencies are more likely to be resurrected.
Compared to games of the same type, Among Us’ breakthrough in terms of profession can be considered bold. In the vast majority of these types of games, a career system seems to be necessary. For example, Goose Goose Duck features dozens of unique professions, while Town of Salem is based on the differences between different professions. But these games all have the same problem of being unfriendly to beginners. In this regard, the breakthrough made by Among Us has effectively reduced the entry barrier for players. From the perspective of MDA framework, the mechanism of Among Us (doing tasks/destruction) directly leads to the dynamics of tension and suspicion, thus creating the aesthetics of comedy and betrayal. In contrast, our game mechanics (killing/voting) lean more towards hidden and suspicious dynamics, resulting in the aesthetic of fellowship. Therefore, we need to change the voting restrictions (mainly time and communication before voting) in the mechanism to enhance the dynamic of player suspicion and better serve the aesthetics of fellowship.
However, at the same time, Among Us has overlooked a lot of content due to these seemingly helpful mechanisms for players to get started. For example, the almost complete lack of beginner tutorials results in novice players not knowing where the tasks are or how to complete them. At the same time, in order to reduce the difficulty of players’ memory, Among Us has basically given up updating the game’s core mechanism of tasks. The basic tasks of the same type make old players lose their motivation to play. So our game should also make changes in the guidance aspect, increase the guidance part, and increase the possibility of more game victories, such as allowing players from non fixed factions to appear.
In summary, the main inspiration of Among Us for our game is to reduce the entry barrier for players, increase the variability of the game process, and strengthen the player’s role after death.
Reference data source：
*https://headphonesaddict.com/among-us-statistics/#How -many-people-play-Among-Us
