Among Us is a part adventure game, part puzzler, and part murder mystery sim. The basic rules are incredibly straightforward; if you’re a crewmate, complete all your tasks while discovering who the Impostor is. If you’re the Impostor, kill everyone without being discovered.
Aside from that, the only real rule in Among Us is that you shouldn’t talk outside of meetings if you’re playing IRL or in a group chat, and that ghosts (killed crewmates) shouldn’t talk at all. However, the rules for the individual games can be tweaked by tweaking the Among Us settings.
If you want the best settings for Among Us, take a look at our guide below. You can also check out our how to play Among Us guide for instructions for play itself, and our Among Us tips and tricks page to try and get the upper hand.
Settings
Each map comes with recommended settings, but these can be tweaked by the host. Here, we describe what each setting affects, so you know exactly what you’re changing.
Here's a quick rundown of the settings yo might want to change game to game:
Impostors: This refers to the amount of Impostors in play. The limit refers to the lowest number of Impostors allowed (if your lobby isn’t full, the game can decide to have less Impostors).
Confirm Ejects: With this on, it will tell you if the person you just ejected was an Impostor or not. With it off, it won't.
Emergency Meetings: This is the amount of emergency meetings a player can call from the center of the map.
Emergency Cooldown: This is the amount of time you need to wait in between emergency meetings. When playing online, having a long cool down stops it being abused.
Discussion Time: How long in seconds you can discuss Impostors in meetings before you vote.
Voting Time: How long in seconds you have to vote. Discussions can continue during this time. Shorter time limits make the game more intense, longer limits make them more methodical.
Player Speed: How fast the players move around the ship.
Crewmate Vision: How far the crewmates can see around the ship.
Impostor Vision: How far the Impostor can see around the ship. Impostors typically get better vision to make their job easier.
Kill Cooldown: How long the Impostor must wait in between kills. The more Impostors, the longer it should be.
Kill Distance: How close (short, normal, or long) the Impostor must be to kill someone.
Visual Tasks: A few tasks, such as scanning in the MedBay, are visual, as in other players can see you. If you are seen doing a visual task, that’s proof that you’re not the Impostor.
Common Tasks: These are the most basic tasks in the game, and take an average time to complete.
Long Tasks: These tasks take the longest as the name implies and involve visiting multiple rooms to complete them.
Short Tasks: These tasks are very short and can be completed quickly, in a single location.
Set Up Advice
There are various ways you can tweak Among Us depending on what type of game you're looking for, so we've suggested some game builds below.
Frantic games: If you want to play a fast and frenetic game, you should have a quick kill cooldown, lots of short tasks, short discussion time and short voting time, plus confirm ejects off. This build means the game moves very quickly, with less time for debate and long discussions. It also means you'll never be fully aware if you ejected an Impostor or not until the end of the game. It favors Impostors, though the high amount of short tasks do mean the crew doesn't have to work as hard to win.
Methodical games: This style of game is largely the opposite, and if the fun of Among Us comes from the deduction, you'll favor this. It features either a long kill cooldown or 2 emergency meetings (both together is quite unfair on the Impostors), as well as long discussion time and long voting time. Together, these two categories can clear 2 and half minutes if you really want to get into it, though many players find anything over 90 seconds to be too long. Confirm ejects are a must for these games, as it lets players know if their suspicions were correct. This build favors crewmates, so having more long tasks can address the balance, while including visual tasks goes well with the spirit of deduction.
Player speed offers no real advantage either way, but most players seem to favor something between x1 and x1.75, so it's best to stick with that when starting out.
How many Impostors should I have?
It depends on whether you want to lean into the mystery aspect of the game (in which case, just have one Impostor), or want to a more pressured playthrough (in which case, have more Impostors).
As for group sizes, it's best to stick to just one Impostor if you have five players or less, and to avoid having three Impostors until you have eight or more players. Of course, a lot of players stick with a solo Impostor even in a ten player game, but you should probably include some of the Lone Impostor settings to keep the balance right.
Lone Impostor: With just one Impostor, the crew has a significant advantage. The best way to balance this is to have quick kill cooldowns of 15 seconds or less, long kill distance, only 1 emergency meeting, and Impostor vision should be at least 0.5 higher than crewmate vision, arguably even more.
Three Impostors: Here, the Impostors have the advantage. For that reason, you want long kill cooldowns, probably of over 40 seconds, and only a short kill distance. It might be best to stick with just the 1 emergency meeting, as frequent meetings being called can abuse the long kill cooldown and make it too difficult for the Impostors to work. Impostor vision can still be higher, though only by around 0.2. When playing with two Impostors, a balance between these two approaches is advisable.
Six Letter Codes
Earlier versions of the game had four letter codes when joining rooms, or setting one up as host. However, following an update, this was changed to six letter codes. If you still have four letter codes, you will need to update your version of the game to play with people on six letter codes.
General Advice
You want to try and keep a balance between whether your game favors the Impostors or the crewmates. Long meeting cooldowns, short kill cooldowns, no visual tasks, don't confirm ejects, long kill distance, and lots of long tasks will favor the Impostor.
The opposite of each of those settings favors the crewmates. If you're playing a few games together, tweak the settings each time to figure out what balance works for you.
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