Among Us, a Look at the Big Game Tweens and Teens are Playing Right Now
If you work with tweens and teens, you’ve probably heard them talk about the game Among Us. Maybe you’ve heard them talk about someone being an Imposter or using the word Sus, which is short for suspect. Today my 11-year-old and I are hear to tell you about the newest game rage for our target audience.

Among Us is a game that you can download and play for free on your mobile device. You choose a character, enter a public game, and you are given little tasks to do while you try and figure out who among us is the impostor. The setting is a space ship, which is one of my favorite parts. You can either be a crew mate or the impostor. Let’s take a quick walk through.
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A Beginner’s Guide to Among Us
When you launch your game, you are given some choices, such as your character color and few characteristics. You will also name your character. I named mine Bob because I’ve always like that name – it’s a palindrome.

You will then select to host or join a game. I have never hosted a game, I always just join one. Your game can be public or private. To join a private game you need a code. For libraries looking to connect virtually with tweens and teens you’ll want to look into private games.

When the game begins, you are then told what your role in the game will be. Remember, you will either be a crewmate or an impostor.
What Among Us is and Why It’s So Popular

You will either be told that you are a crewmate or an impostor. If you are the impostor, your goal is to not get caught. If you are a crewmate, your goal is to stay alive and find the impostor and eject them out of the game. That’s right, you can get killed. And if you are the impostor, you can kill people. This is me, getting brutally killed.

In the mean time, you are given a variety of tasks to do around the space ship. The quotation marks are where your various tasks are located.


You will also have discussions with other players and vote on who you think the impostor is.


If you correctly guess the impostor, they are ejected out of the game and you win! If no one correctly guesses the impostor, everyone loses and the impostor wins.


It’s a pretty simple game. And as you cans see, it’s pretty simple graphics. But it’s a lot of fun and very popular right now.
How Among Us Became So Wildly Popular
Like with other popular games, there are a lot of great programming ideas you can do to tie in with this game and it’s popularity. For example, you can use oven bake clay to make Sus charms and figures. You can do the same with Shrinky Dinks. In fact, most craft ideas you have that are character based can easily be modified to utilize Sus characters. I’ve already seen a lot of Among Us products for sale online.
If you haven’t checked it out and you like to play games, give it a go. You won’t be alone. It’s one of the most popular games of 2020 – well since Animal Crossing New Horizons.
Filed under: Video Games

About Karen Jensen, MLS
Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 30 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).
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The creators at InnerSloth are asking that people don’t buy unofficial merch. It’s an indie game! Also important is you can still finish your tasks as a ghost and if the crewmates finish their tasks they win.
Stacey, thank you so much for the information. I didn’t realize the merchandise I saw for sale was unofficial. And thanks for the clarification about how you can finish your tasks as a ghost. I should have added that.