Back in 2020, when the COVID lockdowns forced so much social interaction online, many chose to hang out with friends by playing Among Us, an online social deduction game. Those who’ve played games like Bang or Werewolf are already familiar with the concept.
One player acts as the impostor, and the other crew members have to figure out who among them it is. The impostor needs to use subterfuge and trickery to convince the other players that the impostor is someone else.
Unlike most games that reward gameplay skills, games like Among Us, Town of Salem 2, and Goose Goose Duck rely on social deduction skills over fast reflexes.
The article lists some of the best strategies for reading social clues and figuring out who can’t be trusted.
Build a Timeline of Who Was Where
These games all share a similar gameplay loop. In Among Us, players are part of a space ship crew and need to roam the map doing small tasks. Eventually, one of the players is murdered, and the crew will find the body. Once the body is discovered, players must call a meeting and vote for who they suspect of being the killer.
The impostor aims to convince the other players that someone else was the murderer. If they’re successful, an innocent player will be jettisoned into space, and the game continues.
Keeping track of who was doing what using a note-taking template can help you figure out who is the impostor. When a body is reported, you should keep track of the following:
- The room where the body was found, and who reported it.
- Each player’s claimed location just before the body turned up.
- Who vouched for whom during that window.
- Any player no one can account for.
- Task claims you can check against the map.
- Any account that clashes with an earlier one.
Avoid the Probability Traps
Newcomers in social deduction games are often too easy to trust players who are loud and confident, or they go the other way and automatically distrust anyone who asserts themselves too much. The best players weigh every claim on what it would cost the speaker if it were false, not on how it was delivered.
Learn Fair Play From the Sleuths
Television detectives test the same skill. Good whodunits play fair: every clue needed to solve the case appears on-screen before the reveal. A classic British mystery series like Father Brown is a good place to practice. The season contains ten self-contained cases, each with a closed suspect list. Pause before the priest explains and name your suspect, then check which detail mattered.
The insights you’ll gain through this process will help you see through people’s lies and misdirections in games like Among Us. The mechanics at play in the game go deep, so much so that they give players an insight into human nature. That level of depth is why it continues to draw in millions of players.
That fairness is written into the genre. The rules of air-play detective fiction, set out by Ronald Knox in 1929, bar solutions from unexplained intuition and require the culprit to be someone introduced early. A meeting works the same way. The impostor is always a player you’ve been watching since the first task.
The Real Skill Is Reading People
Social deduction games are ultimately less about spotting one obvious lie and more about understanding how people behave when they have something to hide. The best players learn to notice contradictions, weigh motives, and recognize when confidence is being used to distract from weak evidence. That makes these games a surprisingly useful exercise in reading human behavior.
If you’re interested in reading more about topics related to similar games and more, see our article archive.
Last Updated: July 27, 2026
