Among Us

If you have come here today looking for the usual tedious ranting about the pandemic and the election, this post is not for you.  It's for friends of mine, to introduce them to a multiplayer online game called Among Us.  But you might want to keep reading anyway.  Unlike most of what I write here, this post should be fun!

(And also, I do plan to publish an update on the Senate races later today, so keep an eye out for that)

ANYWAY --- the game is called Among Us, and it can be downloaded for free from the App Store and Google Play.  Normally, you would have to put up with in-game ads, but since I will be hosting our room, you won't even have to put up with that!  (Who's your buddy, who's your pal?)

When you first open the app, you will see a home screen that looks something like this.  To get familiar with the game, you'll want to tap the 'Freeplay' option:

Tapping this button brings up a menu of three rooms to explore for freeplay.  We will be using the original and most popular room, The Skeld, so select that one.

When you do, you should find yourself on a screen that looks something like the following.  You'll see something in the lower-left that looks kind of like a doughnut.  It's actually a virtual joystick, and it's how you move your player around in the room.  As an initial challenge, see if you can figure out how to move your avatar up and to the left a bit, to stand approximately where my avatar is standing in the image.

One thing that you may notice is that the little laptop in the lower-right becomes activated as your avatar gets close to the laptop on the table, but greys out as you move away.  So if you did it right and you're standing where my avatar is standing, you should be able to tap that 'Customize' laptop to bring up a selection of file folders (sorry, no screenshot --- I couldn't figure out how to do that now that I've updgraded my phone).

Within these folders are all of the tasks you might be asked to perform when we play a game in The Skeld for reals.  So you can add/remove tasks from your list of 'tasks to complete' whenever you like.  Your tasks to complete are listed in the upper left.

So --- grab a few tasks for yourself and experiment with how to complete them.  Or just use the list of tasks already assigned to you.  The game will help you in a few ways.  For one thing, yellow triangle-y arrows will appear at the sides of the screen, pointing you the way to your next task.  And when you get close to an area where one of your tasks is, that area will be outlined in yellow.  And just like the 'Customize' laptop became enabled when your avatar got close enough to the laptop to use it, a 'Use' button will become enabled whenever your close enough to a task station to perform it.

The 'Use' button will even be in the same location as the 'Customize' button on this screen!

Another tool the game provides to help you with your tasks is a map.  That's the icon in the upper-right that kind of looks like a flag.  Or maybe a map.  Anyway, if you tap that, you'll see a map of The Skeld, with your task locations highlighted in yellow.

Once you get bored with practicing tasks, you can ALSO practice being The Imposter.  Just return to the laptop in the Cafeteria, pull up the menu of available tasks, and select the RED folder, labeled Be_Imposter.exe.  That's a fun one!  That doesn't give you more tasks to do; it allows you to learn what The Imposter can do --- including sabotage, moving through vents in the ship, and of course, killing your crewmates!

When you're all funned out, you can exit the game by tapping the 'Settings' icon in the upper-right, and selecting 'Leave Game' from the menu that pops up.