The Tuesday before Winter Break a group of students walked into my room after lunch. As I said hi to them and asked them how lunch was, I watched them exchange looks with each other. You know, the: “You say it”, “No you say it” look. Until finally one of them said, “Mrs. Baughcum, can we play Among Us on Friday?”

“Totally”, I answered!

The group smiled at each other , proud that one of them had the nerve to ask me (because I am so scary you know and I never want to try anything new in my classroom😜).

“But…” I added, “Not the online /digital version and no killing.”

“Ok,” they replied in chorus and smiling at each other.

I added,”We can do a live version. I will create something for Friday. ”

After a few minutes of idea exchanging and tips on how I could make the live version work, I had a good read on what each of them loved about the game and a few ideas to get me started.

“Trust me you guys. I promise I will make it fun. I will not let you down,” I smiled as the bell for rang for class to start.

…what they didn’t know is that I was absolutely and completely exploding with excitement inside. I was dying dyyyyyinnnng for a reason to bring Among Us into our classroom and they just gave me the final push to make it happen.

RESEARCH

As soon as the bell rang to end that school day I went into research mode. I wanted learn all about Among Us, everything! I wanted to know back story, the theme, rules and game mechanics. I wanted to be able to imagine how it felt to be in the game.

Resources: Among Us Wiki | Fandom, my Children (15 and 13yrs old) , my students and YouTube [Search: Among Us How To Play]

Among Us Back Story:

In Among Us players are are given the roles of crewmates aboard a spaceship, sky base or on an alien planet. They must complete various tasks, acting as maintenance workers for MIRA around spaceship (Skeld), sky base (MIRA HQ) or alien planet (POLUS). Completing the tasks ensures their safety and success. Crewmates find their cosmic research prevented and their lives at risk by beings called Impostors. Imposters want to sabotage crewmates’ work, kill crewmates and claim the operation for themselves. Imposters have infiltrated the MIRA and they are out to take over it all. “Crewmates there is an Imposter among us!”

Among Us Game Theme:

Among Us is set in one of three maps. The spaceship (Skeld), sky base (MIRA HQ) or alien planet (POLUS). Each map is comprised of rooms that go along with the setting. Each room has tasks in it that Crewmates complete to keep their location running.

Among Us Objective:

Crewmate: to complete all their tasks before getting killed by The Imposter(s) and/or find The Impostor, ejecting them off the map.

Imposters: to sabotoge the ship and “kill” as many crewmates as possible before being identified and voted off (identified as an imposter).

Among Us Game Mechanics:

Please note: I know there are a TON of game mechanics in Among Us. I am only sharing the ones that I thought would work for my students, my classroom, during COVID (6 feet apart and no sharing materials ), and with students in person and remote

Roles:

Crewmates– can win by voting out The Impostor(s) or by all of them completing each of their tasks before all of them being killed

Imposters- cannot complete any tasks but are given a fake task list so they can blend in, have the ability to sabotage to force Crewmates to resolve issues and can win by killing the majority of the Crewmates and leaving only one alive per Impostor.

Abilities:

Sabotage– only Impostors can activate sabotages. A sabotoge creates a temporary problems that Crewmates can either wait out, ignore, or fix.

Kill– is only used by Imposters. It is one of their main abilities. The Imposters use kills to defeat the Crewmates and remain victorious.

Emergancy Meeting- what happens when the Emergency Button is pressed. During emergency meetings, players are teleported to either Cafeteria or Office, depending on the map, and are unable to move. Once teleported, Discussion time occurs.

Discussion– first of the two phases of an Emergency Meeting that is followed by a vote. During the Discussion period, players cannot vote. This is a time for players to discuss who they think is an Impostor before votes start to be cast.

Tasks:

A set of activities that Crewmates must complete. Tasks are the main objectives of Crewmates. Impostors do not have to complete tasks, but are given a list of possible tasks they can fake fake. There are four types of tasks: common, short, long, and visual.

PLANNING

Jam packed full of Among Us information (more than I will probably ever need to know in my life time). It was time to start bring this game to life.

To plan the game I started by thinking about what I had learned about of each part of the game, imagining how each part could come to life in the classroom (EDU), created the elements (Build the Game ) that would allow me to create the game experience in our classroom (Game On)

EDU Roles:

Crewmate– could win by voting out the Impostor(s) or by all of them completing each of their tasks from their task card before all three missiles were activated

Imposters- could not complete any tasks but are given a task card to “complete” (so they can blend in), have the ability to sabotage and can win by activating all three missiles.

EDU Abilities:

Sabotage– only Impostors can activate sabotages. Sabotages would be called “Power Alerts” and when a “Power Alert” occurs Crewmates would have to fix them immediately before doing anything else

Kill– there would be no kills in our game. First of all school and kills…yikes. Second, we had to maintain distance and no touching. Kills were replaced with Missiles. Imposters would need to work together to secretly activate three missiles to take down the station and win the game.

Emergency Meeting- Emergency meetings could be called by Crewmate holding up their Red Card in the middle of the classroom. During emergency meetings all players would have to circle up, discuss (Phase 1) and vote (Phase 2).

Discussion– first of the two phases of an Emergency meeting (next phase is the voting). During the Discussion period players discuss with each other who they think is an Impostor before votes are cast.

Vote- second phase of the Emergency Meeting . Players cast their vote for who they think is an imposter. At the end of the voting phase any identified Imposter is out and the Crewmate with the most votes is also out.

EDU Tasks:

Tasks are a set of activities that Crewmates must complete. Completing the tasks on their task card is the main objective of Crewmates. Each Crewmate is given a task card with the tasks they must complete. Impostors can not complete any tasks but are given a task card to “complete” (so they can blend in).

When it came to tasks I spent a ton of time on them. First because they are a blast to brainstorm and create. Next, because I knew this, besides the imposters and “killing”, tasks were the thing that was really going to make the game awesome. I dove into the Among Us Wiki | Fandom, keeping in mind that I wanted to stick with short tasks and visual tasks. I started by copying and pasting the exact tasks from the game into a google doc and then started thinking about how I could create that experience in my classroom. My goal, this first time through, was to create 12-15 tasks.

Among Us EDU | Tasks [Shared / Open Source Doc]

Some examples from my Among Us EDU Tasks….

BUILDING THE GAME

After thinking through and creating the mechanics of the game it was time to bring it to life! I started by giving my thinking structure, using Google Slides to help me create the story line, share the game objectives, show the game mechanics and explain how they would work in our classroom.

Among Us EDU | Game Introduction Slides [downloadable and editable]

My Among Us EDU Back Story:

Crewmates were welcomed aboard a spaceship headed to an alien planet. They must complete various tasks, acting as maintenance workers for MIRA around spaceship (Skeld). Completing the tasks ensures their safety and success. Crewmates find their cosmic research prevented and their lives at risk by beings called Impostors. Imposters want to sabotage crewmates’ work, activate three missiles and claim the operation for themselves. Imposters have infiltrated the MIRA and they are out to take over it all. “Crewmates there is an Imposter among us!”

Among Us EDU Game Theme:

Among Us is set in the spaceship (Skeld). Room(s) have tasks in it that Crewmates complete to keep their location running.

Among Us EDU Game Mechanics:

EDU Roles-

Crewmate cards were created: colored Crewmate cards were created. Students would pick a colored Crewmate as they came into the classroom. They would wear them on a headband from the Headbands game.

Crewmate and Imposter Cards: Crewmate and Imposter cards were created, printed and laminated. I would shuffle the cards at the beginning of a game and walk around for students to pull a card. Remote students would “draw” cards and be given their roles by one of my TAs via Zoom chat. I have 10-15 students in a class. I would aim for a 10:2 ratio of Crewmates to Imposters.

EDU Abilities–

Sabotage– Sabotages would be called “Power Alerts”. I decided on two sabotages: Turning Off The Lights and Closing A Door

Activate Missiles (Kill)– Imposters would need to secretly activate three missiles to take down the station and win the game. I used magnetic flig-ons and painters tape to create a “slide”. Imposters would need to secretly move the magnet onto the painters tape to activate the missile. I set up six possible Missiles that could be activated.

Discussion– first of the two phases of an Emergency meeting (next phase is the voting). During the Discussion period players discuss who they think is an Impostor before votes start to be cast.

EDU Tasks:

Tasks are a set of activities that Crewmates must complete and I had a BLAST creating them! The first time through I created 12-15 tasks. I wanted at least 10 of them would be live and in person and at least 3 would be digital.

DAY OF THE GAME

On the day of the game I spent my off period setting up the tasks and getting the room ready. To add some complexity to the game, I also set up tasks and one of the missiles in the hallway.

When the bell rang fo class to start I waited at the door way holding a tray of all the Crewmates. As students came in they got to pick their color Crewmate. With Crewmates selected and headbands on, they were ready to start the game. Before I started to share about the game, I reminded them that this was our first time ever playing this new version of the game, that I knew I might have missed something and I worked hard to make it awesome. Most of all, when we were done playing I wanted to hear their feedback so I could make updates. I pulled up the Among Us EDU | Game Introduction Slides on the projector and started to tell them a story, bringing them onto the spaceship and into the world of Among Us EDU. Woven into the story were the objectives, tasks, and rules. Students asked their questions and then it was time to play.

I walked around, Crewmate and Imposter cards shuffled, each student took a card, looked at it and then hid it. The crew was put in cryo sleep saying, “heads down (no peaking). Imposters raise your hands, Imposters raise your heads, look at each other and Imposters put your heads down, Crewmates awake. There is an Imposter among us. GAME ON.”

As the first game ended and the Imposter was discovered. We all had a blast and laughed as we shared favorite moments, who suspected who and what their favorite way of discovering who the imposter was. Students took time to share with me small details in the game I had missed and changes they suggested I make to improve it.

…and then I heard, “Can we play again?”

REFLECTIONS

As excited as I was when my students asked me to play Among Us, it wasn’t that I hadn’t thought about bringing it into our classroom. I mean we totally and completely love games and I knew this one was super popular. I pretty sure they wouldn’t like Among Us, hadn’t played it very much or at all, that it wouldn’t match up with their learning strengths and weaknesses and that some of its specific game mechanics of it were too complex for them. Holy wow was I wrong (they seem to show me this lesson often…they are incredible). Planning this experience gave me so much, building it brought me so so so much joy and watching them play and interact with the game taught me tons! My goodness I love games!!

What My Students Taught Me:

My students can totally be sneaky, really, really sneaky

Even with weaknesses in attention and recall, given game play and differentiated motivation, my students could visually recall what they saw happen during the game to suspect who activated a missile minutes and minutes ago. All while completing tasks and navigating a game.

The strategy and skills they are developing, building and practicing playing Among Us online pay off in the classroom

They are scaffolding their own learning. Kids are either playing it on their own one line, playing it with friends, friends are teaching them how to play it and/or they are learning and playing it with a sibling.

There are benefits to repeating and using the same large group of tasks in the game

Games and game play is just sooooo fun (I love when they remind me of this)

What I Learned From The Game:

Game / EDU mash-ups are incredibly powerful and jam packed full of amplifying learning power

This game is jam packed full of potential and educational applications (I have not even begun to tap into it all)

This game can support any ANYYYY topic and any subject

This game and its mechanics can be played multiple times per class period and has the potential to extend beyond a single class period

It is crazy fun to play Among Us with them!

I really need to significantly improve how I include both remote and in-person students in the game play (no matter how thoughtful I thought I was), is really really hard. I will better next time.

JamBoard continues to be an incredible tool, so full of potential

Wearing masks was actually a game advantage…instant poker face

Updates I Will Make To The Next Time:

I will have SIGNIFICANTLY more digital tasks

If I had more students I would have a digital and live version of the game to keep the 10:2-ish ratio.

If hallway space continues to be available I will move more tasks and more Missile switches out of the room to continue to mix it up and make it more challenging

We will focus on task completion of Crewmates (if all Crewmates complete their tasks the Crewmates win) and not just finding the Imposter

There are soooo many Breakout EDU elements that could be applied and incorporated into the tasks in this game to make it even more fun

I will add more Sabotages “Power Alerts”… they were so much fun for the imposters

Keep masks as part of the game even post-COVID (as a teammate said…”they could put on their game faces”)

AMONG US EDU RESOURCES

As I created this game I also created it with sharing in mind. As I built these experiences for my students, I instantly knew they would be valuable for others too. I hope that if you decide to bring Among Us into your classroom, some or all of these will be helpful in creating your own Among Us classroom experience. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions, need different access to the materials below or to share your ideas with me!! (I used Canva, Google Slides, Google Docs and Google Jamboard to create the materials below):

How to Play Among Us

Among Us Wiki | Fandom

Among Us EDU | Tasks [shared / open source doc]

Among Us EDU | Sabotages [shared / open source doc]

Among Us EDU | Game Introduction Slides [downloadable and editable]

Among Us EDU | Basics [downloadable]

Among Us EDU | Task Cards [downloadable]

Among Us EDU | Digital Tasks 1 [downloadable and editable]

How To Add Game Elements to Your Classroom: Among Us- Google Style By Laura Steinbrink

Among Us Class Game By Adam Bold

Among Us Class Game V2 By Adam Bold

Taking Among Us To School via TCEA