Sweeping the world like a storm right now, not only Covid-19, but also the game “Among us”. The game is a game for devices and basically it goes like this:

There are a bunch of crew members on a spaceship doing mundane jobs, but someone on the ship is an imposter. They are not a crew member, but a cold blooded murder out to kill them and destroy the ship. The crew must find them and throw them off the ship or complete their tasks and save the ship.

Basically it’s the most simple murder mystery game that you can have. It’s a modern online take of the common card game “Mafia”.

This instructable re-imagines the game off devices. A game to play together with friends in person. A game that involves running about, watching your back and working together to get the tasks completed.

Supplies

Simple version:

A pack of cards

6-15 people

20 or so toddler puzzles or household chores

A tin can and a spoon.

A building with as many rooms as possible

Complex version:

A colour printer

Paper

A laminator

10 or more toddler puzzles

Scissors

A craft knife

A wide range of silly hats & costumes

6-15 people

A device with a big button app installed

A loud bluetooth speaker

Lots of cardboard for making masks

Some elastic to hold the masks on

Bluetack or masking tape

Whiteboard markers.

A building with as many rooms as possible.

Extremely complex version:

Multiple computers running on the same network

Lots of arduinos or raspberry pis

Lots of pots, buttons, leds, screens, etc

Lots of time, money, passion, creativity and patience

6-15 people

A building with as many rooms

(This extremely complex version is not explained in this instructable, but if you like to go over the top, you might see the printable tasks and start thinking creatively. Ie. Electrical is connecting the correct wires.. a breadboard with LEDS and a battery would be way cooler than the printable. Tasks could be connected to central server that tells when all the tasks are complete. Swipe cards could be RIFD tags as well as the tasks that require sorting things. Some tasks could have electrical circuits completed by crew members drawing on them with graphite pencil. Makey Makey chips are near begging to be used in some easy way... Possibilities are endless and I would love to see someone go hard out. Personally, I didn’t have the time, so printables worked for me.)

Step 1: Setting or Making Tasks:

Printable version:

Print, cutout, laminate, re-cut out and assemble all the attached activities from the Among us game and stick them around the house. I’ve included the pdf with the files, and photos of the files assembled for some reference.

In the game online, there are multiple team members doing the same tasks, but this doesn’t work for this. So I recommend having some other tasks available. The more tasks you have, the harder it is for crew members, but the real game has about 5 per player, so really, the more there are, the longer the game lasts and the more chances the imposter has to win. It evens out the stakes more.

I added about 10 toddler puzzles and that worked well for our game with about 12 players. We had 3 imposters. We played about 4 games in a row.

Toddler puzzle version:

Get 20 or so toddler puzzles, place them undone on the floor, desks, tables and beds in as many rooms as possible with signs next to them giving them a name, basic instructions and a crew member colour (red, blue, pink, yellow or green). Choose puzzles that take 5-20 seconds to complete. The more you can have, the better.

I’ve included a pdf of an 11 task description and a photo of the toddler tasks

Tidying house version:

Ok, so you have to tidy the house and the kids hate it. Here’s how you get them to do it. You invite their friends over to play among us. You break up the chores into small 10 second tasks and from now on, call them tasks. Never call them chores or jobs.

When I say break them up, I mean real small, not just “clean the bathroom”, and not even, “Clean the shower.”

But like this:
-Scrub shower walls
-Clean shower hair trap
-Scrub shower door
-Clean shower soap holder
-Wipe shower mixer...

You do that for the whole house.

You want about 60 tasks in as many different places as possible, then you can play 3 games with 20 tasks each. Ideally the tasks should all take less then 30 seconds to complete. To help with this, I’ve created a Task Checklist PDF that you can print off.

Fitness tasks:
You can make a fun fitness class out of this by having fitness tasks printed out and stuck in different rooms.
These can be short tasks such as sit-ups, squats, step ups, pressups, star jumps, burpees, etc. The game requires the tasks to be location based.
To help with this, I’ve created a Fitness Task Stations PDF that you can print off...One has some example activities and another has blank spaces.

Step 2: Setting Up

Put a noise maker in the central gathering point. This can be a pot to hit with a spoon, a drum, a whistle, an air horn, a phone connected to a loud Bluetooth speaker. Etc... Just, it should be heard from every space.

Print out the crew mate and imposter cards. Alternatively you can sort a pack of cards and pull out all the hearts to use as crewmates. Also take out a queen, jack and king of clubs to use as imposters. (They just don’t have the colour connections to tasks)

Place the tasks around the rooms or buildings in as many places as possible. Make them obvious, but not visible from each other. Windows of the house make for easy removal.

Decide how many imposters and crewmates from the players you have. On the printable cards, there are 5 different colours of crewmates, you want the most colour diversity. Ie. 1 of each, 2 of each, or a good mix. Put those cards together, shuffle them and hand out one card per player. My suggestion is to start the game easy for the crewmates and make it increasingly harder, so one imposter to every 7 players, and about 2 tasks per player.

Then next game, add an imposter and double the tasks. That way, most people get to feel a heap of success, and you get lots of jobs done.

Step 3: Running the Game

Get everyone to choose a silly hat, give out the cards to assign roles.

Explain the rules below:

If you are a crew member (you got given a heart card from the deck), your goal is to complete all the tasks without being killed.

You should complete the tasks marked with a crew member the same colour as the main crew member on your card.Each time you complete a task, you must go back to the main table and tick it off the list. You cannot do multiple tasks in the same room and then tick them all off at once.

If you are the imposter (you got given a club card from the deck), your goal is to kill all the crew members before they complete their tasks and without them knowing you are the imposter.

The imposter kills crew members by tagging them and showing them their card. The crew member will stop what they are doing, and lie dead on the floor. You must then wait 10 seconds before you can kill again.

Imposters also might do tasks or undo tasks in order to convince people they are crew members. If the imposters succeed in killing all of the crew members, then the imposters win.

Emergency meetings:

When anyone finds the person dead, they can run back to the table, bang the pot with the spoon and call an emergency meeting. When anyone suspects that they know who the imposter is, and they can call an emergency meeting. The imposter cannot kill people on the way to the meeting.
At the emergency meeting, everyone (who is not dead), can discuss whether they want to eject someone from the ship who they suspect to be the imposter. A vote is taken. If people are unsure, they can skip a vote. If more people skip voting, then vote for a single person, no-one is ejected, and the meeting ends. If the most votes are to eject a specific person, then that person is ejected from the ship into outer space and their role is revealed. The meeting ends.

If the imposters are all caught, the crewmembers win. Until then, the ghosts of crew members (both killed and ejected) can continue doing tasks, but cannot communicate in any way who the imposter is. When there is more than one imposter, ghost imposters can also undo tasks.

(Optional)
This helps imposters to team up when too many people keep sticking together making it near impossible to kill anyone. Get everyone to close their eyes. Ask imposters to open their eyes, so they can see who each other are. Get them to close their eyes. Ask everyone to open their eyes.

Countdown from 10 and let everyone go for it!

For another round, pull out the next list of tasks (chores), reshuffle the cards and go again. Or if you did toddler puzzles or printables, get everyone to quickly run around and reset them. Fitness tasks just need a clean checklist or get people to check with different colour pens.