How to improve Among Us: Where it is and what it need
While reviewing the numerous topics I have yet covered about Among Us I couldn’t help but notice that I hadn’t actually reviewed the game at all. However, just by glancing at what I’ve written about it so far it should be really obvious how I feel about the game, so instead let’s take a look forward at what further development of the game should consider bringing.
Among Us: Quality of life changes
Quality of life changes are changes meant to make the game easier to play or more accessible in a way that does not affect balance or gameplay. Think of this as the kind of changes that would make Among Us fit your hand better, to make your control over your character feel more seamless and deliberate. Everyone benefits from these changes, and they are almost always a good idea if you can support them.
The first major change, arguably the first priority for continued development, is the implementation of a functional colorblind mode. Color blindness is a very common disability affecting roughly 8% of men and 4.5% of women, and is a must include if Among Us intends to spread amongst that population.
Color blindness makes playing Among Us difficult for numerous reasons, but the most common is the color based “wires” puzzle, and the inability to accurately identify players by their chosen colors. For the wire’s puzzle, this could be amended by simply adding a shape based element to the puzzle (e.g. if the wire slots were identified as squares, circles, triangles, and stars) which would allow colorblind players to solve the puzzle as simply as anyone else.
As for player identification, the developers will have to playtest multiple solutions, but arguably a color identifier will almost certainly need to be added to the names both as they appear in the map and during discussions.
Among Us: Gameplay changes
The Gameplay in Among Us is arguably the most tuned part of the game, and almost certainly the reason behind its massive success. It would be hard to suggest changes to the gameplay that could be described as anything more than an opinion, and Among Us already gives players so much control over exactly how they want to play.
My personal opinion is that impostors could do with a few more tools for splitting up players, as playing with groups who stay within sight of each other at all times can make playing impostor a miserable experience.
Another suggestion (that could fit within the quality of life changes as well) would be something like Discord integration. For player groups that use voice chat, it would be helpful to allow Among Us to mute and unmute players based on the state of the game, only unmuting living players during meetings, for example.
This kind of change would help players who play on a handheld device, as they would no longer have to bring Discord up to mute or unmute themselves.
Among Us: Other Changes
Beyond those two changes, Among Us could simply do with more content, so long as that content is as well designed as what the game already has. Internal voice chat might be something worth considering as well, and would make public games a little bit easier, but wouldn’t be entirely necessary thanks to the ubiquity of Discord.
However, public games may benefit from other changes, such as the ability to report toxic players, but Among Us doesn’t need those kinds of features so long as they continue to foster a culture of self-reliance within its player base.
Let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions for changes that the game might benefit from as well.