Among Us is an online space-themed, murder mystery game following a similar gameplay style to the board game Clue. Among Us was released in 2018 but is just now starting to gain popularity, after gamers started streaming it on Twitch.

Among Us is a cross-platform game, so you can play it on your phone or computer and still be able to interact with your friends. The player is randomly assigned the role of crewmate or an imposter. The goal of a crewmate player is to complete a series of tasks, such as fixing wiring, uploading files or finding out who the imposters are. The goal of an imposter is to even out the number of crewmates and imposters and keep crewmates from completing their tasks by sabotaging them. As the imposters kill off crewmates, other crewmates can discover their bodies and call a meeting. In the meeting players can debate about who the imposter is, while the imposter must cover for themselves and throw the blame on someone else.

Players can play either online or locally. Local allows you to play with people on the same WiFi network as you. Online allows you to play with anyone around the world. Online players can host a room and set it to private and secure it with a code. Each room can hold up to 10 players.

There are three maps you can play on in Among Us; the Skeld map, which is based on a space craft, the MiraHQ map, designed on an airbase in the sky and the Polus map, which is a planet base. Depending on the map, players must complete different types of tasks, including unlocking manifolds, testing samples and storing artifacts.

The tasks are fine, but the fun part is when people try to find out who the imposter is; the game is a battle of wits and cunning. The player must decide who is telling the truth and who is lying and correctly choose who the imposter is. It is this part of the game that the slang word “sus” came from. “Sus” is an abbreviation for suspicious.

One of players’ favorite aspects about the game is the customization of your character. You can choose from a range of colors as well as a selection of hats. This made people decide to make characters based on the tiny space avatars in the game. They use these characters to depict scenes and gain a real emotional connection to characters they have created within the game.

The appeal to this game is the ability to run into so many funny moments with friends, like defending your friend who turns out to be the imposter, using deductive skills and having the satisfaction of being right. The social aspect of this game is what makes it so popular.

The game spread like a contagion from person to person, eventually making it to big YouTubers like Pewdiepie, Lazarbeam, Jacksepticeye and others. Among Us has started rising in the charts even two years after the release, hitting new download records every day. Thanks to this rise in popularity, the game makers decided to cancel Among Us 2 and focus on improving the original game.

The mobile version of the game is free from the App Store and Google Play. It has ads, but you can pay to get rid of ads for $2 . There are also customizations you can buy for your character. The computer version is available on Steam, Itch.io and Kartidge for $5.

I would rate this game four stars out of five. It has potential but has not reached it fully yet. I can’t wait to see where the developers take the game in the future to further improve the gameplay. As it is right now, it is simple and needs more to compete, including features that would give more gameplay other than kill someone and find a murderer.

Among Us was a hidden gem for a long while, but now it is being discovered by the world.