This week's Android Game of the Week is called Among Us, and to say that it is popular is a bit of an understatement. It's spawned a metric ton of memes on Reddit, it's taken over my Twitch feed, and it seems to be a game that everyone wants to play. I just learned earlier this week that there was a mobile version, and it supports cross-play with PC and iOS. Jumping on the bandwagon, I figured I'd give the game a shot.
While not my cup of tea of personally, the game itself is very good and certainly worth highlighting here. Among Us has been out for a little while now, but the recent surge in popularity has even seen it overtake Fall Guys in popularity. Its very cute, simplistic art style is appealing to just about everyone, not to mention its incredibly basic, yet surprisingly complex, premise.
I'm not afraid to admit when I've sat on, or completely missed, something that later becomes popular. I didn't even know what Among Us was until a few weeks ago when the "Emergency Meeting" memes started appearing in my Reddit feed. On Android alone, the game has over 50 million downloads and an average rating of 4.4 amongst over 1 million reviews. That's insane for a game of this scope.
It just goes to show that sometimes, a game need not be flashy to gain popular attention. If anything, we've seen two examples just this year: Among Us and Fall Guys. While the latter has yet to make its way to mobile — and rest assured, we'll be on top of it if it does — Among Us is free to gather all the players it can.
So if you're out of the loop, what exactly is Among Us? It's a multiplayer game played with 5-10 players. Most of you will set about doing various tasks on your ship, but among you is an imposter. These imposters are hell-bent on killing everyone on board and must be found out and stopped at all costs.
Among Us proves that sometimes, a game need not be flashy to gain popular attention.
While everyone goes about their tasks, the imposter will sabotage things and generally sow chaos to cover his or her tracks. If done well, no one will be the wiser (except the dead, but they can't speak). If a body is found, the group can assemble and vote on who's the imposter. This is where the true game of deception comes in. A good imposter will shift the blame and suspicion off themselves. If successful, the crew will vote out the wrong person, and the imposter will once again be free to slaughter.
And that's it. Among Us is an example of a very basic game that has a high potential for skilled players to really shine. Whether you're observant and catch the imposter, or deceive and kill everyone, good players have a lot of room for growth. But that also means any player can improve, and you definitely will get better with time.
So go find the imposter, or go kill everyone carefully, and when you're done, be sure to head over to our best Android games roundup for some more fun stuff. And there are previous Game of the Week entries to checkout, too.
Among Us is a very popular multiplayer game where the goal is to either find the imposter or kill everyone else, depending on which role you're assigned. It's a ton of fun and worth giving a try to see what the hype is about.
