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This time, the editorial board of FamiTong interviewed Innersloth, the development team of "Among Us", what kind of team is this company active in the United States? What do they value most? In addition, this interview also mentions more first-hand information about the game, and interested readers should not miss it.
Victoria Tran (referred to as Victoria in this article), community director
Explore the ideal form of existence for a team, all about making fun games
| Q: 2020 is a year of great leaps and bounds, and 2021 is a big year in another sense. Looking back on 2021, how do you feel?
Victoria: It's true that a lot of things have become different. When It first came out of Among Us in 2018, Innersloth was just a small team of 3 people. In the second half of 2020, when the game exploded, we received more support and the team grew, and now it is a team of 14 members! That being said, our team is still a bit thin for a game of this size. However, we will not change too drastically, nor will we go too fast on the road of development, but will move forward step by step, focusing on maintaining harmony within the team. To be honest, we actually wanted to maintain the existing small team size, because it was easier to establish a good atmosphere, not to be excluded from small groups, and everyone could directly affect the future of "Among Us" and the studio. We attach great importance to our relationship with everyone.
| Q: Hasn't the way games are developed changed?
Victoria: The essence hasn't changed, we're still going to test the game internally, and then focus on improving the parts that can be made more interesting. No matter where we're in it, we're constantly improving the features of our dreams. So we can't just make a big game, we have to confirm that the new features are getting better and more robust for the communities we've built. But it can also be called an ideal state, and a game of this scale cannot be serviced at all without support from other levels. We are very grateful to all of our friends in business development, product development, quality assurance, localization, player service, porting operations and other links. It was with everyone's support that our game was delivered to players all over the world, and instead of compressing the time we spent on production, we happily moved the project forward together.
| Q: What do you think is the reason why Among Us is so popular?
Victoria: The biggest reason for the success of this game is, without a doubt, is that it's so easy to play with, both men and women, young and old. The second reason should be that we manage the community with care. Even if you don't know how to play the game, you must know how to lie to your friends, right? [Laughs). Although the rules are extremely simple and easy to understand, the complexity of the nature of this pleasure lies in its sociability. Therefore, people will invite friends to play together, teachers will play with students in the classroom, and celebrities will play together for charity. While no game can restore the complexity and confusion of human interactions, Among Us brings everyone together and encourages everyone to actively get to know each other. Because it's simple and a game, you can both build good relationships with other players and maintain social distancing from each other. What we value most is the most essential and simple fun brought about by "cheating" and the social anecdotes born from the community.
In order to build the best community, we will continue to optimize the game
| Q: Please share with us the good news and the most impressive things about 2021.
Victoria: It's a really hard question to answer, and it's almost all uplifting good things (laughs). First, in November, we posted a preview of the update "Roles and Cosmicubes" live on Youtube. What is the reaction to the new elements revealed in the trailer of this animation? Each of us is worried about live streaming. But everyone was looking forward to it, and we were relieved. In addition, there are also unthinkable linkage activities such as "Among Us Nendoroids" and "Linkage Products with BTS", which is also one of the things that we are very excited about.
| Q: How did you evolve in 2021?
Victoria: Among Us is a game that evolves all the time and doesn't stand still. Since going live in 2018, we've been adding new elements and improving optimizations. In order to absorb new users this year, we are making every effort to expand the game as a whole, such as adding new maps, new characters, new skins, optimizing the moderation system, accounts, expanding servers, etc., and countless others!
| Q: 2020 is the year with the largest user growth of "Among Us", and the growth gradually stabilizes in 2021, how do you think of the changes and suggestions of users?
Victoria: Thank you so much to the global players who play our game. While it's exciting that "Among Us" has created incredible heat, it's only natural that people will gradually calm down after a while, and that's all within our expectations. But new and old players will still play the game, every day, occasionally with friends or... For the enthusiasm that players have shown for the game, we can't repay it except thanks. People have always been very active in supporting us and want to add new content. Even now we still have the best community we are most proud of, and we will continue to strive to make the game better in order to better serve all of our players. This belief will not change, and we must work harder!
| Q: All of a sudden, 4 new characters have been added, what is your purpose? What is the effect of this? What chemistry do you expect to happen between players?
Victoria: These 4 new characters will bring more complex and new gameplay to familiar reasoning and the mechanics of deceit with other players. Many players want to try out new ways to play, and this is one of the ways to achieve player requirements. In addition to making the game more interesting, the new characters will also greatly change the previous strategy. But we wanted to allow players to be able to play as they pleased, rather than us unilaterally pushing it on everyone, so we designed it so that players could choose whether to apply new characters or not, adjusting the probabilities and the strength of each character independently.
| Q: This is really a "deception" (good meaning) players are looking forward to the big update, I believe that all players will be very happy to see the continuous improvement of "Among Us", please tell us about the future ideas.
Victoria: That's right, "Among Us" evolves all the time! Thank you very much for growing with the community as a small team, and we will be releasing more new skins, new game modes, new maps, and other updates in the future, of course, it is not convenient to talk about it now (laughs).
| Q: The characters and worldview of "Among Us" have gained great popularity, which has also led to sales in the official peripheral area, and many fan-made works have emerged. The reason why it is so popular is also related to the release of the physical version, please tell us about the release of the physical version.
Victoria: We really admire the talent and brains of the fans who make their own work using the characters in Among Us. In addition, we are very pleased that there are many players who are keen to collect the relevant peripherals of Among Us. The physical version of the game was also released to fulfill the fans' desire to "have a real game on hand", which has become one of the items that we absolutely want to get for those of us who have a passionate community. And we really like the physical version of the game, which is more realistic than the digital version.
| Q: Finally, what are your plans for 2022? Not only "Among Us", but if there are plans to launch other new works, please share them with us.
Victoria: In 2022, especially after the pandemic, we want to continue to maintain this work that brings people together. Hopefully, among us, if possible, it will become a game that connects players from all corners of the world. As for the other works... THAT’S A SECRET! :)
Compilation 丨 Shimei pear
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