5 Life Lessons I Learned Playing ‘Among Us’

You might think it’s just about causing chaos and killing people in the electrical room, but the latest quarantine hit game is more than that. There are actually plenty of life lessons from Among Us that can help us reflect on ourselves and our surroundings better.

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What is Among Us?

For those living under a rock, Among Us is an online multiplayer game where you win by either being good at lying or good at putting puzzle pieces together. Imagine Mafia, Werewolf, or Avalon but with cuter avatars and mini-tasks to accomplish. Every round starts with the group of players being assigned one of two roles: crewmate or impostor.

A crewmate can win by either going around all the rooms in the spaceship finishing tasks, or voting out all the impostors on the ship. An impostor’s ultimate goal to kill the crewmates without being found out by the rest of the group.

When the dead body of an impostor’s victim is found, or an emergency meeting is called by a crewmate, everyone votes out someone whom they think is the impostor. So imagine all the finger-blaming and name-calling that ensues in a round of Among Us that creates a fun, wholesome bonding experience between you and your friends.

Alexa, play It Wasn’t Me by Shaggy.

But like we said, life lessons from Among Us are out and about when you take a step back from the game and absorb how it truly mirrors real life.

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1. Working smart is better than working hard.

I’ve played countless games of Among Us, and not once have I experienced crewmates winning one just by finishing their tasks. The smarter play is to bide your time doing your tasks while constantly keeping an eye out for dead bodies lying around.

The faster you do your tasks, the higher the chances you’re going to get killed with the impostor searching every room for their next victim. Compare that to someone who is more slow and methodical with the tasks they do. Chances are, the more careful player will have a higher chance of coming out alive.

In real life, don’t be the crewmate who zooms through their everyday tasks without giving much thought on the bigger picture. Working hard can get you far, but it might not lead you to where you want to be. It can even get you killed if you’re not careful.

Take your time before anything else. Those who choose to work smart come out on top by exerting less effort.

2. You don’t win anything by being alone.

Ever tried to go Miss Independent on all your tasks only for the impostor to successfully pin the murder on you come voting time? We’re still holding bitter feelings because of that, tbh.

One of the best strategies is to do your tasks with someone you can “trust”. It does mean that you will have to put your game in someone else’s hands because they may very well be the impostor, but the benefits of having an ally far outweighs not having one.

You get an added layer of protection because most impostors wouldn’t have the guts to kill with somebody else in the room. More importantly, someone can vouch for you when voting time begins.

On the other hand, being alone doesn’t do you any good because it increases the risk of you either getting killed or voted out.

In real life, you will have to trust other people. You might have had bad experiences with some ex-friends who forced you to build impenetrable walls as a consequence of their actions. But one way or another, we will need to learn to let the right people in our lives. There are still solid friends out there who will be there to fight for us when everyone else wants our head on a stick.

3. Some things just trump logic.

Friendship ends when the emergency meeting button is pressed. Everyone is suddenly vulnerable with their guards up, trying to pin the blame on other people while getting all defensive.

While this may be a stressful time for those who remain in the game, those who are already dead get front row seats to an entertaining fight. And the greatest part of being dead is knowing how well or how terribly the impostor is lying to other players.

It is during these meetings where you really get to see how easy logic and the truth can get buried so easily.

In the early voting rounds, you’ll realize that the louder voice will almost always be the one that is followed by the whole group. No matter how well a person defends themselves with logic and facts, everyone else will probably still vote them out.

This example shows us one of life’s toughest pills to swallow: even if the truth is laid out for someone, they will choose to either go with their emotions or what the majority decides. A liar’s confidence is something that will trump logic… which is why we’re seeing too many smart people still getting into MLMs.

4. Being observant is so, so important.

One of the most vital life lessons from Among Us is to be observant of other people.

You have to watch them with intent — not in a creepy stalker kind of way, of course — but you always have to be mindful of their actions.

In the game, you’ll be able to figure out who the impostor is just by keeping track of who was with whom and being aware of who else was in the room. There’s nothing more frustrating than being in the same room when a murder happens, but forgetting who else was there with you.

When a meeting is called, you’ll be able to deduce suspicious behavior by the way other people chat. I play the game a lot with one of my friends who only points fingers when they’re the impostor. His “tell” took a while to figure out, but once I realized the difference in how he acted when given a certain role, it was easy to spot the times when he was lying.

Just being observant and mindful alone will get you far ahead in life.

For one, it helps you cut through other people’s bullshit. When I started to really watch how other people acted, I realized how powerful the act of observing truly is. One of the ways it has helped me as a shy introvert is by letting me know how to approach someone whom I have never talked to before.

And reading a room really helps you not look like a jackass.

5. Trust is tricky.

There are moments of betrayal and lies in the game that will make you question whether or not you can trust anyone ever again. But hey, things wouldn’t be as fun without those moments!

As much as we hate putting this as the last item in a list of life lessons from Among Us, it’s true that your closest friends can ultimately stab you in the back.

In the game, we see this when an impostor tags along with you while doing fake tasks and sabotaging the rest of the group. Just when you think you can trust them with all your heart, they can kill you just like that.

With the risk of bringing up some of your childhood trauma, most of us have probably experienced being made fun of by a so-called friend behind our backs. The moment we realized that they’re not our real friend is a painful memory to relive.

While being treated like trash in front of your face is one thing, a stab in the back by someone you trust is just a whole ‘nother level of hurt.

On the bright side, we can always make room for someone to earn our trust back when we’re ready to forgive. We can always press the “Play Again” button in life; we’ll just have to see their actions to truly determine whether or not they are worthy of it again.

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Have you learned life lessons from Among Us, too? Share them with us in the comments below! If you loved this article, then you’ll probably love the other advice we have for you here.

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