Among Us Review: From a Parent Who Has Actually Played

A couple of weeks ago the kids came to me super excited about a game their Aunt had told them about–they asked if they could play with her and after they explained it to me and showed me a little about it, I said yes. It seemed harmless and they were playing with their Aunt.

After playing a couple of rounds, they kept talking to me about it and asked me to play with them and I not so happily obliged! After a few rounds, I was so glad I took a deeper look into it.

Before I get into the details let’s start with the most basic question you may have.

What IS Among Us?

Among Us is an online multi-player game. You can play on a computer or via the app on your phone. You can create public or private rooms so you’re able to play with complete strangers OR create a private room and give the code to friends and family. You play with 4-10 ten players and upon start you are either assigned “Crewmate” or “Imposter”. Crewmates run around the ship doing tasks whereas the Imposter runs around sabotaging and killing the Crewmates.

Throughout the game, bodies will be found and “reported”. Once reported or when an emergency meeting is called players enter a chat area where they can discuss who they think the Imposter is and subsequently vote them off. The Imposter wins when all Crewmates have been killed. The Crewmates win by either figuring out who the Imposter is and voting them off or completeling all the tasks assigned to them before the Imposter kills them all.

Things I Love About Among Us

As an adult, I really enjoy playing this game and will play while the kids are asleep or while I’m putting the littest down for a nap. It’s fun to try and figure out who the Imposter is and even to be the Imposter. I most enjoy being a Crewmate because it’s fun to be on a team, working together to figure out who the Imposter is.

I have so much fun playing with my sisters and the kids and it’s easy to see it being a great way to for kids across the country to connect with friends near and far during a time when they’re seeing less and less of each other.

Areas of Concern

For me there are two areas of concern and this first one I’m going to talk about is really parental preference and not a safety issue, in my opinion.

While the characters are animated, the Imposter’s job is to kill the Crewmates. When you’re a Crewmate (which is what your kids will be most of the time) when/if they are killed an animation of that kill pops up.

Here they are:

Knife in the Back

Tongue through eye

Neck Snap

I saved the most problematic for me since it involves a gun.

So obviously, while there’s no blood, there’s still a gun and the animation clearly shows the head not being there anymore. Which is a YIKES for me. And might be one for you too.

Earlier I mentioned “reporting a body” so I wanted to show you a picture of that so you get an idea of what it looks like–it reminds me of a ham bone, nothing too scary.

The final and biggest issue for me is the chat aspect. The chat is necessary for the game, if you tell your kids that they can’t go into the chat, it’s likely they’ll get voted out early and often making it less fun.

BUT often it’s inappropriate. Censored chat IS an option but kids aren’t stupid and neither are grown ups. They can easily say things in a way that make it so they can still “curse” by using abbreviations. It’s also not hard to figure out what “**** you” is.

In addition to that, chat isn’t the only place you can see inappropriate things. While most usernames are totally fine some aren’t. I’ve seen “horny girl” and things like “bigpeen”.

In chat rooms I’ve also seen people ask questions like “are you single” and saying vulgar sexual comments and I’ve also seen racist comments.

So obviously the chat is a HUGE problem.

So Why and How do I let my kids play still?!

Okay so the graphics aren’t a deal breaker for me. They might be for you, but they’re not for me. What IS a deal breaker for me is the inappopriate chat in the chatroom.

So how do I get around that?

My kids are only allowed to play WITH me or with trusted friends and family. When we play together I make sure that I’m the host, or near by whoever is the host so I can ban people who are inappropriate though a lot of times that isn’t even necessary because between myself, the big two, my siblings and friends we can usually get a full game or close to a full game without inviting strangers in.

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve found it to be a wonderful way to bond with one another, we laugh SO HARD over it.

In the end, the decision is up to you! I think you can have a lot of fun with it with trusted family and friends but I don’t think it should be something that’s done completely unsupervised.

If you have any other questions or if you want some playing partners for yourself or your kids–shoot me a message on Instagram.