Among Us (Hide and Seek)

An alternative way to play.

You’ve probably played Among Us. US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently played with Jagmeet Singh the leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party live on Twitch. So you know, it’s popular.

I was playing for a while and starting to get bored when something unexpected happened. I joined an online game and was told when entering the waiting ship that “we’re playing hide and seek, if you don’t want to do that, then leave.”

I stayed.

When the game started to make sure everyone knew, the imposters called a meeting and revealed themselves. No tasks to do, no mystery to solve, no imposter to discover, just eight crew members that now had to run and hide from two killers.

It upended the game completely. You only get one life and hiding is a lot harder than you might think. Suddenly the renewed adrenaline rush that only came with being an imposter on the edge of getting caught was shared with every player in the game. It became a horror movie experience. Everyone knew the imposter could kill you easily but the kill cool down time gave you a chance to get away. Being alone on a far corner of the ship became both terrifying and exhilarating. The more time that passed the closer you came to death and one of you might survive?

I found people coming up with great ways to hide and groups running together for herd protection. It was a blast. These players hacked the game in the simplest way and reinvented it into something new. The imposters slowly picked us off, of course, but the very next game they did it again.

We’re playing hide and seek, if you don’t want to do that, then leave…

I stayed on that server and played as a crewmate for a while, then got to be an imposter. It's hard to kill people when you’re trying to be sneaky, but when the crew knows you’re the bad guy they run away like there is no tomorrow.

I’ve noticed a hide-n-seek server a couple of times but have never been able to join. Clearly, more than a few players have figured this out. It’s fantastic when people work together to have creative fun.

Here’s to not following the rules and playing games in unconventional ways!