Disclaimer: No imposters were harmed in the making of this article
(Okay, maybe just a few)
It's October 2020. Let's be honest, anyone among us who hasn't heard of this game is DEFINITELY pretty sus.
For you imposters out there, Among Us is an online multiplayer social deduction game available on your PC or as a mobile app. The setting is based in space, with 3 maps available: The Skeld (which I'll mainly be focusing on), Mira HQ and Polus. Players are in the form of jelly-bean-like space people, and are randomly assigned to the roles of either a crewmate, or an imposter.
As imposter, your goal is to kill the crewmates and sabotage their tasks.
As crewmate, your job is to complete all your tasks, fix any sabotages, and well... not die.
This article will look at the game from the crewmate's perspective (sorry would-be murderers), and more specifically, how you can release your inner sleuth to figure out who exactly is picking you all off one by one.
#1 Vents
Let's start with the basics. There are certain actions that only imposters can carry out, namely sabotaging and venting. Now, while you can sometimes tell when someone has carried out a sabotage (often people stand still while pushing the button, then move on), sabotages can also be carried out while running so this isn't a guarantee that you just spotted an imposter carrying out their clandestine (or not) plan.
However, if you see someone go into or come out of a vent (which imposters can use to effectively teleport to another room), you can be 100% certain that that person is a killer. So don't wait around. Don't hesitate.
Run straight to that red emergency meeting button and tell everyone what you saw. Because you're next.
#2 Tasks
Your job as a crewmate is primarily to finish all the tasks assigned to you. However, the imposters don't have any tasks to complete, so in order to blend in and pretend to be a good egg, they have to fake them.
Taskbar
One way to see if someone is faking tasks is to check the taskbar at the top. If the task bar goes up, they're safe. If the task bar doesn't, they might not be. Here's a map of how all tasks on The Skeld affect the taskbar:
I made a Skeld map task guide. Task locations are marked and color-coded for how they affect the task bar. Hope it helps some people. :) from r/AmongUs
Visual tasks
this game gives me trust issues pic.twitter.com/bdpFvrJoWB
— Among Us Funny (@amongusfunny) October 17, 2020
While with most tasks you can't actually see the tasks happening, there are some which generate fun visual effects when they're being completed. As a result, if you see someone doing one of these and nothing happens — they're faking it. Conversely, if you see someone doing a visual task and the effects do happen, you can be absolutely sure they're a fellow crewmate. That's one to tick off the list of suspects, and also team up with.
Here are all the visual tasks on The Skeld:
Storage: Empty Chute/Empty Garbage
Medbay: Submit Scan
Weapons: Clear Asteroids
Shields: Prime Shields
Common tasks
Common tasks are tasks which every crewmate has. These can only be Fix Wiring, or Admin: Swipe Card. However, this means that if you don't have one of these tasks, then no-one else should either. That makes red pretty sus when he's 'swiping his card' and it's not on the list...
Task lengths
Different tasks take different lengths of time to complete. Imposters can sometimes give themselves away by spending too long (or the opposite) on a task that really should only take a few seconds tops.
Check out these articles for more detail on tasks:
https://gamewith.net/among-us-wiki/article/show/22106
https://www.androidcentral.com/among-us-task-guide-skeld
#3 Monitoring
In Security, you can access cameras which show you what's happening in other parts of the map. This is a great way to monitor your fellow space people's movements, and who knows, sometimes you can get lucky and catch someone killing or venting right in the act. However, there is a catch.
Cameras flash red when someone's watching from security, tipping off the imposters, so if you stay in there too long the imposter has a nice juicy target he can come to kill. For the daredevils among you us, you can try going on and off cams to see whether you can annoy the imposter into making a move. Just be warned: I take no responsibility in any deaths which may or may not occur upon following this advice.
I've done this one time but no one was watching the cameras lol from r/AmongUs
Similarly, the map in admin shows the current position of players (though importantly it doesn't show movement through corridors, or colours of players). If someone disappears and reappears in another room instantly, they probably just vented. If someone's icon disappears and reappears in the same place, they were just killed. Either way, you might want to check those out.
#4 Psychoanalysis
Sounds cool, right? One thing that can give away imposters if you play with the same people are behavioural changes between playing as crewmate and as imposter.
In one of DisguisedToast's YouTube videos, he exposes one of his fellow 'crewmates' as an imposter by (not-so) simply observing that that particular player only answered questions with the words 'How' or 'Why' when they were imposter. Through a much less Sherlock Holmes (or Poirot, Conan or whoever your favourite fictional detective is)-like deduction, I recently saw a post where the OP's friend was caught out because his (short-lived) expedition as an imposter was the only one where he didn't shout about how great it was not being imposter!
Anecdotes aside, what I'm trying to say is that sometimes, especially with less experienced players, people will act differently when they're imposter. So, if someone who usually chats a lot is staying unusually quiet this round, it might be a red flag that they're up to no good. It's not necessarily the case, but at least you can keep an eye out for them throughout the game.
#5 Calculate
Imposters win if crewmates fail to fix a reactor or o2 sabotage, or if they remove enough people so that there are as many imposters as there are crewmates.
That means that it's extremely important to keep track of how many crewmates there are versus how many imposters there are left. Imagine that there are 4 people still alive, and one is an imposter. You're about to vote someone out, and you have a 1/3 chance of success.
If you guess wrong, then there are three people left and all the imposter has to do is kill one of you and win (they can use a sabotage to stop you using the emergency meeting button). It's practically an automatic victory for them.
Therefore, the better decision would be to skip voting so no-one is voted out, then next time round there are only 3 people left and you have a 50/50 chance of winning or losing as opposed to only 1/3.
From https://comicsandmemes.com/among-us-memes-2/
Also, try to get as much information as you can from meetings. Figure out where everyone was. Don't let someone stay silent. In a social deduction game where you have to find the murderer, information is key.
#6 Keep track of where everyone is + groups
If you have a basic gist of where everyone is, it can help you deduce who could be the imposter based on their movements and also where they say they are on the chat.
If there's someone who seems a bit sus, see where they just came from and scan the area for bodies. Conversely, it can also provide alibis for other members and help you tick people off your list of suspects. Sticking in groups is a great way to establish your alibi, and also make it harder for the imposter to be able to kill you! (Just be careful that your 'partner' isn't the imposter themselves...)
my friend kept getting killed every round, so i said i wouldn’t kill them first if i got imposter. unfortunately, they kept following me around... from r/AmongUs
#7 Look at the game info
Finally, before the game starts in the lobby, there is a list of info about the game. Have a good read, it may come in useful!
Bonus!
Here's a short video of what could happen if you don't get to that emergency button fast enough...
That brings us to the end of this article! Those imposters better watch out...
