There is an imposter among us!

The pandemic and lockdown posed many problems for the people, and many turned to online games to keep busy during the period. Most of the students are still staying home and attending online classes along with online games. ‘ Among Us’ by Innersloth is one of the most popular online games these days. Although this game was launched on June 15, 2018, it has gained immense popularity only now in 2020.

According to Sensor Tower data, Among Us has reached 86.6 million total downloads on mobile, following an enormous surge in installs in August and September. When it was first launched in 2018, Among Us generated less than a 1,000 downloads in August whereas in August 2020, the game was installed more than 18,000 times that figure.

Popular Twitch streamers, youtubers like PewDiePie and many content creators and memers making videos hyped up this game, making this game popular worldwide, including Nepal.

Also the game is very simple to understand and play. It does not require any special strategy and skill to play and requires four to 10 players.

The players are divided into two groups - the crewmates and the imposter. Crewmates do their task as assigned by the game, and the imposter has the goal to kill the crewmates without being identified. The goal is to identify the imposter before getting killed.

“It’s a game of murder, mystery, deceit and betrayal,” said streamer Ludwig Ahren recently.

“The only tool we have is communication. It’s all about talking to each other.”

So this basically is a simple game with your luck to be an imposter, handling the whole game and checking our communication skills.

I have also been playing this game since a few weeks, and the ultimate theme of the game is to whether or not to trust someone, and play smart either as crewmate or imposter. The most interesting and important part of the game is the Emergency Meeting where the innocents and the real imposters get kicked out if one cannot defend oneself with the communication skills.

Another reason why this game has gained popularity is because we have all been locked inside our houses for months, and this game has helped connect friends and communicate with them along with having fun. It is really connecting people.

We saw other games like Ludo gaining popularity in the early days of the lockdown, too.

It looks like Among Us has replaced Ludo, but without any doubt it too will be replaced in the near future.