In latest years, “Among Us” has expanded into a number of collaborations with different video games, into digital actuality, merchandise and fan artwork. This has all been the product of exhausting work, stated Forest Willard, the Innersloth programmer who additionally manages the corporate’s enterprise, sitting down with The Washington Post in Los Angeles throughout The Game Awards, the business’s annual Oscars-like awards occasion.
“We definitely didn’t intend for [“Among Us”] to be an excellent widespread cultural phenomenon,” Willard stated. “But at the same time, we did design the game specifically to be approachable by ‘non-gamers.’ Given the virality and the approachability, it makes sense.”
“Just looking around at the game industry, we’re probably one of the better branded ones in terms of merch. Most games don’t bother with it. It is a lot of work.”
Victoria Tran, who handles Innersloth’s social media presence, stated that “Among Us’s” greatest social media platform is TikTok, the place the sport has over three million followers. She spoke about how she’s labored on diversifying Innersloth’s social media presence, and the way the corporate wouldn’t be influenced by Twitter’s acquisition by Elon Musk.
“Growing up with social media, I don’t trust any platform to sustain itself, honestly,” Tran stated. “I saw MySpace go down, I saw Vine go down. I don’t know what’s happening with Facebook. BeReal was the hot thing and now no one’s talking about it.”
Even if Twitter went down, Tran stated, the “Among Us” builders additionally put up information inside the sport itself, in order that they have a direct line to gamers.
“Among Us VR” was up for finest digital or augmented actuality sport at Dec. 8′s The Game Awards, the place it misplaced to journey puzzle sport “Moss: Book II.” A staff of over 15 builders at Schell Games had been tasked with bringing “Among Us” to VR, launching the sport one month in the past.
One of the primary issues the staff observed throughout improvement was that “Among Us VR” would make too good of a horror sport.
“It quickly became clear how scary that game can be in VR, especially when you’re now in an environment that could be creepy, surrounded by people who want to mess with you and kill you,” stated Michal Ksiazkiewicz, senior sport designer from Schell Games.
Ksiazkiewicz stated that when adapting “Among Us” into digital actuality, they’d to think twice about tips on how to adapt kill actions, in order that they weren’t too spooky and horror-like for gamers. The builders additionally added colours and little jokes to loosen up the general tone of the sport.
Schell additionally streamlined the sport, abstracting actions like stabbing different gamers with a knife into the press of a button, in order that avid gamers don’t need to goal inside digital actuality, which Ksiazkiewicz stated may very well be nauseating.
“This is all about the aspect of lying to your friends, and everything else should be in service of that,” stated Ksiazkiewicz. “Our goal in VR was to make it as low a barrier of entry for a player as possible.”
Adapting in-game purchases to VR has additionally confirmed to be a piece in progress. While “Among Us” on console, PC and cell has rolled out collaborations with “League of Legends” and “Fortnite,” Ksiazkiewicz stated that they’re presently uncertain of whether or not they can promote greater than digital hats in VR. Costumes and pets, which can be found on the unique sport, haven’t made it into VR but.
At the Game Awards, “Among Us” introduced its greatest replace this yr, including a hide-and-seek mode. In maintaining with the super quantity of fan curiosity in “Among Us,” Willard talked about balancing including in-game content material with worker exhaustion. He stated that since “Among Us” took off, he’s had the fixed feeling of enjoying make amends for enterprise and technical points.
“It still feels like we’re playing catch up because people’s demands can come much faster than any update,” Tran stated. “It’s been exciting and stressful.”
Willard stated that for probably the most half they attempt to get rid of crunch, or the follow of working lengthy evenings or weekends within the gaming business.
“You tell your leads, ‘No, don’t crunch,’ and your leads tell their direct [reports], ‘No, don’t crunch.’ Then everybody has at least that mental image of ‘I don’t want to crunch, crunching is bad,’” Willard stated. “We have crunched, it’s not perfect, it is always a work in progress. But we’re trying to minimize it as much as we absolutely can.”
For the sake of avoiding overwork, typically gamers’ calls for can’t all be happy, particularly when prioritized towards different upcoming content material and options, Willard stated.
“That’s the part where you do start to ignore the players, like ‘Sorry, it’s just not high enough priority,’ and you just pace yourself.”