Simply put, “Among Us” is one of the greatest online party games to have ever been created. Available on PC and mobile devices, the game was released over two years ago, but it only recently surged in popularity in September of this year.

Similar to the popular parlour game, Mafia, this social deduction game revolves around identifying crewmates and imposters. While the players who are crewmates must complete tasks around the map and vote out the imposters during emergency meetings, the imposter’s objective is to unsuspectingly kill the crewmates until the number of imposters equals the number of crewmates. Discussions are the only times players can talk, and they can be triggered if a dead crewmate body is reported or if an emergency meeting is called, in which players must logically deduce who to vote off. Dead players cannot speak during discussions but can communicate with other dead members in the ghost chat. Here are some tips to improve your imposter skills:

1. Look the part.

In order to win as an imposter, you must act like a crewmate. Pay attention to your fake tasks listed at the top left of your screen, and if worse comes to worst, just say you were at electrical doing wires when questioned. Pretending to do tasks and acting inconspicuous under security cameras offer opportunities to blend in with crewmates, but be careful: Crewmates can easily spot faking tasks if the task progress bar does not increase or if you complete the task in an unrealistic time. During the discussion rounds, conceal the quiver in your voice and gear up your psychoanalysis skills. You must be reasonable during voting rounds, and that includes agreeing with crewmates to vote out an exposed imposter if it means that you can win some trust from other players and time to continue killing. If the other crewmates agree to skip voting, do so as well so you don’t look suspicious being the only one voting someone out while others don’t.

2. Be smart about sabotages.

Imposters have the ability to sabotage specific areas of the map to distract crewmates. For example, door sabotages lock crewmates in different rooms for ten seconds, allowing an imposter to hide a dead body or kill a crewmate secretly. On the common skeld map, the main sabotages are communications, lights, O2 and reactor. The lights sabotage reduces crewmates’ field of vision, and O2 and reactor both require crewmates to head to a room and stabilize the sabotage in a given amount of time. (Otherwise, if time runs out, crewmates lose). Sabotages are most effectively used in separating crewmates, which an imposter can exploit by picking off lone wanderers, and preventing emergency meetings from being called so the imposter is not voted off.

3. Frame a crewmate.

Always target killing cleared crewmates and make suspicious crewmates even more suspicious. A fundamental skill to be a good imposter is the ability to think quickly on your feet and produce reasonable lies. If a player is skilled enough as an imposter, they can kill someone right in front of another crewmate, and then immediately self-report the kill. Another strategy is to kill near a player in an otherwise isolated room and vent out of the scene. The other player will then report the body, and during the discussion, the imposter can frame the onlooker as an imposter by producing a realistic alibi. This has a higher chance of success if the framed crewmate in question has a more ambiguous status among the other players, and you are in good standing with the rest of the group. A popular strategy is the stack kill, where the imposter can kill a person while many players are standing at the same place, doing tasks or fixing a sabotage. In these instances, it may be difficult to determine who the imposter is, but doing stack kills will drive suspicion towards them as well. It is only wise to stack kill when almost every player in the game is in the stack; it may be too risky otherwise.

4. Coordinate double kills.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so you and the other imposter must be working together throughout the game. However, cooperating with the other imposter without verbal  communication takes teamwork to a whole new level. A perfect scenario is double killing with your imposter partner, locking doors while you wait for the kill cooldown and guarding the bodies. Imposters can also call a sabotage at a fatal location, such as the reactor, and wait near it, double killing those who enter.

5. Manipulate a crewmate to play third imposter.

If you’ve ever watched the renowned Among Us player Disguised Toast on Youtube, you’ve likely come across his viral video, “The greatest Among Us IMPOSTOR game ever…,” where he achieved a game-changing win using this unique strategy. Having a crewmate act as third imposter means having them continuously act as your alibi during  discussion rounds to clear you from any suspicion. To do this, you need to follow a crewmate throughout the entire game while faking tasks, so it seems like you had no time to complete a kill.

Being the imposter can result in an embarrassing failure or awe-inspiring win. By following these strategies listed above, you can achieve the latter.