Best Alternative Rules for Among Us

Even though Among Us has a fairly straightforward premise, lobby hosts can change the game settings to create a custom experience every time. Similar to party games like Werewolf and Mafia, Among Us separates a group of friends into Crewmates and Impostors. Crewmates must complete tasks around the ship or base and try to stay alive, and Impostors must sabotage and kill the Crewmates without getting ejected through the airlock. Despite the simple rules, the game has been endlessly entertaining as one of the hottest games of 2020, garnering millions of players around the world. Fans can keep the experience even more fresh and interesting for longer by adjusting their game settings to play with different rules.

Sometimes, minor tweaks to gameplay, like lowering the field of vision for Crewmates or Impostors, or turning Confirm Ejects on or off, can offer a different enough experience. But members of the community have also determined a few alternative rule sets that change the game completely. Players can make chaos and cause further confusion, adjust a game’s tempo, and even use house rules to emphasize the horror inherent in the game’s premise. Lobby hosts who opt for one of these alternative rule sets will want to be sure they have a group that will fully commit to the rules, as some of them cannot be strictly enforced with an in-game mechanic yet. Here are some of the best alternative rules to change up any game of Among Us.

Best Alternate Rules for Among Us

When a host begins a lobby in Among Us, they have some control over the game’s settings. Each map will have a set of recommended settings to help the game run smoothly, but players can use the laptop in the lobby to adjust these. While it is recommended to keep a balance of benefits for both Impostors and Crewmates so as not to give anyone too great an advantage, this is often up to the group’s specific needs and preferences. Here are a few fun ways to change the rules and introduce new challenges during a game.

Color Mode

Color Mode is one of the more popular ways to play Among Us. This mode cannot be enforced by the game itself, but players can agree to all change their name to a color. The catch, of course, is that the color does not match the color of the player’s space suit. This can make discussions during meetings far more difficult to follow and can lead to humorous mix-ups when voting who should be ejected from the game.

If colors aren’t resonating with the group, players can also try an Abbott-and-Costello-style version of this mode and change their names to personal pronouns. Chaos will reign.

Frantic

If lobby hosts want to press their friends and make the game move more quickly, they can choose to adjust the game to a Frantic mode. To do this, in settings, they should include the following options:

• Quick or no kill cooldown
• Many short tasks
• Short voting time
• No visual tasks
• Confirm ejects off

As an added level of challenge, the lobby host can also make discussion times shorter. This will make it difficult for Crewmates to deliberate for long and will often force them to make a snap decision or judgement.

Methodical

For a group full of detectives, the lobby host can elongate the game to put the focus on strategy. In the settings, they can use the following rules:

• Long kill cooldown
• Multiple emergency meetings allowed
• Long discussion time
• Long voting time
• Many Long tasks
• Confirm ejects on

Additionally, if the group is willing, the lobby host should have them commit to ignoring the progress bar in the upper-left corner of the screen. This can be easier said than done, but if Crewmates don’t watch the progress bar, it can give Impostors a bit of leverage in more Methodical games that may otherwise favor Crewmates.

Another option in this game mode might be to keep visual tasks turned on. It can help Crewmates better strategize and use their powers of deduction, though it will put Impostors at a further disadvantage. Lobby hosts should ask the group what they prefer.

Hide-and-Seek

The Among Us community came up with a way to transform the game into a sort of horror movie. This mode requires the lobby host to change some settings and to get the group to commit to a few unofficial house rules to work.

The settings for this game mode are:

• One Impostor
• One task per Crewmate (optional)
• One Emergency Meeting allowed
• No kill cooldown
• Maximum speed

For the other rules that cannot be strictly enforced using settings, players may not report bodies, may not repair the lights, and may not vote the Impostor off in the first Emergency Meeting.

For Crewmates, the objective in this mode becomes finishing their task without being killed and be the last one standing against the Impostor. For the single Impostor in this game mode, the objective is to find and kill all the Crewmates until only one remains.

At the start of a game in this mode, the Impostor will call the only allowed Emergency Meeting and announce themselves as the Impostor. The Crewmates will skip voting. At this point, the Impostor will begin counting to a number predetermined by the group. The Crewmates, meanwhile, will go hide. When the Impostor finishes counting, they should sabotage all the lights and go searching for the Crewmates.

Players can choose whether Crewmates should complete tasks during this game or simply focus on hiding and getting away from the Impostor. To even the odds, the lobby host can choose to lower the Impostor’s field of vision or add a quick cooldown time to give Crewmates hiding in the same place a chance to run.

Though the game will say the Impostor won, the true winner of this mode is the Crewmate left standing at the end.

Among Us is available for PC, iOS, and Android.

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