Real Life Among Us Game Set

I'm sure loads of you know what Among Us is and probably know more about it than I do! All my knowledge comes from what I've picked up from my kids when they are playing it but in a nutshell it is a space based, online, multiplayer murder mystery game. In the game there are crewmates and imposters, the crewmates have to go around the ship performing tasks, trying not to get killed by, and trying to deduce who the imposters are. If the crewmates complete all the tasks or find all the imposters they win and if the imposters kill enough crewmates they win. I'm sure there is much more to it than this and there is loads of information on the web and loads of YouTube videos about it.

My children love to play this game on the PC and their tablets and recently they stated to play a real life version (I have two kids and my partner has two kids so there are four in the house which seems to be a minimum of players you would want). They wrote a load of tasks on paper and had a system to determine who the imposter was and had a great time playing it.

For Christmas I though it would be great to make them a set they could use which would be more hardwearing and look super cool at the same time. So I made eight playing characters shaped as the ones in the game and added a rectangle above the heads. The main character was painted on the front with the top rectangle and the whole rear of the character painted in chalkboard paint. The rectangle on the front would have the peoples names and the back would be used to determine who was the imposter. I then printed and laminated a whole load of tasks which would be distributed at the beginning of the game.

As far as I know there isn't a similar commercial game on the market and the game concept and characters are not my own. This is an Instructable is to show how I went about making my own real life version.

Supplies

Material
Plywood for the characters and main box
Pine for the box lid
Paint - acrylics and chalkboard paint for the characters
Paper and laminator sheets for the tasks
Tools
CNC machine - used to cut out the characters (this could be done by hand too)
Saws - I used a table and band saw
Clamps...always clamps!

Step 1: CNC Characters Using Fusion 360

I started off with a drawing of an Among Us character from the internet and opening it up in Paint. Once imported I used the bucket tool to colour the entire thing black and saved it as a PNG. I then imported this in to Inkscape and converted it in to an SVG.

I then imported the SVG in to Fusion 360 using the import feature in the tool bar. This gave me a basic outline of the character. In sketch mode I drew a rectangle above the characters head (to write players names on) and a rectangle to represent my plywood around the whole character followed by finishing the sketch.

Next I extruded the plywood rectangle -3.2mm (the thickness of the plywood) and did same to the character and the name box. The first 'extrude' made a solid rectangular box and the others made cutouts in the solid box.

I then switched to 'Manufacture' and set up by settings for the CNC using a 2D contour. I first selected a tool that had the same diameter as my CNC had (3mm), followed by selecting the bottom line of the figure. I then went on to the heights tab and kept most of the settings apart from the top value which I changed to 5mm. Lastly in the passes tab I selected the maximum roughing stepdown to be 0.75mm as the router bit was only 3mm diameter and didn't want to stain it too much.

Once I was happy with my settings I created the G-code and saved this to my desktop.

I then opening up the G-code with the CNC software that came with my CNC router (Candle), screwed a square bit of 3mm ply to the CNC base and set the router to cut. I was very happy with my first run so cut another 8 figures. When the machine was cutting the next one I sanded the edges of the complete one until they were all done.

I also kept the outer piece as I could use that later for the box.

Step 2: Paint Characters

Now I had my plywood characters they needed painting. The back of the pieces and the name box on the front were painted with chalkboard paint so players names and character type (imposter or crewmate) could be changed with each new game - it took a few coats to get a nice coverage.

I did the main body painting in a few stages as there are two shades. I started off painting the whole body in the lighter colour, followed by the darker 'shadow' colour once the first layer was dry. Once the second colour was dry I applied some silver paint for the mask, again I did this in layers with two shades.

Once all the paint was dry I used a marker pen to draw the outlines on the figures which really brought them to life.

Next I added tape to the name boxes and spray painted the main bodies with a clear lacquer for longevity.

Step 3: Make Tasks

I found some of the tasks from when the children had played before so I started off by copying these tasks in to a Word document. I split the page in to a grid format using tables and wrote the tasks in each box.

The kind of tasks they had made up were 'Draw a picture of a penguin - Location: Dining room', "Ravel or unravel the coloured wool - Location: Front room' and "Type sfpfj33f-66j in to the computer'. I added some more in a similar vein including one of my favorites 'Test the light in your bedroom leaving it off' as they nearly always forget to switch the lights off in the morning! I should really add things like 'Do the washing up' and 'Vacuum the front room'. Maybe later!

Once I had all the tasks written down I laminated them and cut them to individual cards.

Step 4: Box

Lastly I need a box to put everything in. I still had the plywood surrounds of the characters so I glued them all together to make a purpose built space for the characters. I then glued a couple of strips of plywood together to make the surround for the cards. I could then measure the internal dimensions of the box and work out the final size.

I made the main box body from plywood with mitered joints with a floating bottom which was located in grooves I cut along the bottom. I then glued all the corner pieces and secured to dry with masking tape.

For the box lid I used an offcut of pine as I the edges of the lid are recessed which wouldn't work very well with plywood. I first cut the pine to the external dimensions of the box and then using a router table I routed a groove along the edge of the lid, up to about half the height, increasing the width of the cut until I got a nice snug fit.

All that was left was to paint the box. I painted the whole outside in black paint and when it dried I added specks of white paint using an old toothbrush to represent the stars. To finish the box off I glued a spare character I made earlier to the top (representing the A) and drew on 'mong Us' with silver marker pen.

Step 5: Playing

So as it's a Christmas present and I haven't played this game I don't have detailed instructions on how to play. I'm sure the kids will let me know on Christmas day.

However the brief instructions are:

• Get up to 8 players and add their names to the top of the characters
• One person who is not playing should write in chalk on the back of the characters who is a crewmate and who is an imposter
• Each player get their character and a number of tasks to undertake.
• Players should then go around and complete the tasks and the imposter must kill the other players by touching them.
• If a player thinks another is the imposter they can call a meeting (by shouting!) and players must vote for a player they think is 'sus'.
• If the voted player is the imposter the crewmates win and the game is over, if the voted player is a crewmate they are out of the game and the tasks carry on until the imposter is found or all the tasks are completed.

There are other rules I'm sure and I've heard words such as 'vented' and 'ghosts' which I'm not familiar with but I'm sure I'll find out on Christmas day!!

Comments

[Thebest1423]

I love among us! What a great idea!

[aladner28]

wow! this is a kid speaking and i LOVE among us! and that was very eye opening for me! thank you! I made something like a box but I made tasks out of cardboard and my three sisters love it so thank you! (but I couldn't do the wood stuff so i used cardboard and made a meeting table out of it.)
sighned,
ASA (or my amongus name is player)

[minecraft g0d2]

i'm gonna need more

[Witheredboi]

I must admit, when I first saw this, I was curious as to how you managed to make an Among Us board game. (With the privacy the imposter needs, it would be really difficult.) I like this spin on making it almost a party game =D

[petachock]

The kids definately have fun when playing it - very noisy but they really love it!!!

[Witheredboi]

Just had an idea; wrapping the characters in dry-erase stuff so the characters are customizable

[Razanur]

I made a version for my family (five younger siblings), see pics. As I had a lasercutter, I went a slightly different route (see pics, designs are also attached).
Great fun! I also wrote down the rules and the tasks we played with (but they are on another computer, but I will post them here soon).
Thanks and cheers!

P.s.: You might want to rotate the logo(s) on the sides, as they are upside-down right now :/
P.p.s.: If I forget to post the rules and tasks, don't hesitate to comment to remind me :P (23-Feb-2021)

[petachock]

Nice work...the laser cutting seemed to have worked well. Your painting of the figures is very good and the among us text on the topside of the cards is a really good idea!

[epatterson515]

the amogus set picture was asame

[petachock]

Thanks 👍

[30abdiamr]

i love it so much

[Razanur]

This is pretty freaking awesome!
I would love to gift this myself this Xmas, but for that it would really help to better understand the rules. Is there any way you could pry it out of your kids before Xmas?

[petachock]

Hi. Thanks for the comment!!!
Apart from the game itself and the wiki mentioned in the discussion below there are loads of youtube videos of the actual game and I'm sure there'll be some about real life games. My kids normally get ideas like this from youtubers!!!

[karllukeradams]

Also has guides under community then guides from menu in right hand corner

[cynthia.patel]

Do you have the file of tasks?

[petachock]

There is a docx document attached to step 3. They are quite specific to my house and things around it though...but good for a starting point.

[karllukeradams]

https://among-us.fandom.com/wiki/Tasks
Here is a link which might help with coming up with tasks looks like it has a description of the tasks in the actual game itself

[petachock]

Thanks for that I can always do with more ideas for tasks!

[57th Cork]

Could you add the svg file and Word document please as I would love to make one. Great Instructible and gift idea. Thanks

[petachock]

Added to step 1 and 3. I also added the fusion file!!!
Cheers