Behind the Beans: Judge

Guess what time it is Crewmates! It’s time for us to go Behind the Beans and learn some backstory on our newest Crewmate role: Judge.

For this entry, I cornered invited our Game Designer, Dave, and Senior Gameplay Programmer, Jade, for a little Q&A session. Grab your gavel and get ready to Judge!

Dors: Thank you both for giving us some of your time to chat about our newest role entry: Judge! Before we dive in let’s introduce you to our readers.

Dave: Hey Crewmates! I’m, Dave, the principal game designer on Among Us. I worked with the art, programming, and community teams to make sure our Judge was the judgiest role yet.

Jade: Hey gamers! I’m, Jade, one of the gameplay programmers on Among Us and I guess you could say I’m the Judge’s creator (had the initial idea for the role).

Roughly how many roles was the Judge up against during development?

Jade: We’re constantly prototyping new roles (and trashing many of them) so it’s hard for me to give an exact number.

Dave: I believe, at one point, we had a pool of over 20 roles we’ve prototyped. We’re constantly playtesting and iterating on these roles. So far, we’ve picked out 6 that we would be really happy to release. I’m really proud of our team for getting to this group of 6 because they’re all really different. There’s a good variety of Crewmates, Impostors, Crewmate Ghosts, and even an Impostor Ghost.

How do you assess if a role prototype is ready for the next stage?

Dave: We look at everything! First is the core question of “Is the role fun?”. Before anything else, the answer to this needs to be a resounding “Yes!” Next, we take a look at other factors such as: does the role bring something new to the game? The Judge was moved to the next stage because they have an ability that’s used in meetings.

Jade: Agreed – using our system we call “found the fun”, where we play all the roles we’re prototyping and tweak them until they feel fun, is crucial. If a role can be used to hard clear too easily, we either need to make changes to the ability or cut the role altogether.

Thinking on “finding the fun” and the huge pool of roles, are you able to tell us about other meeting-based roles that weren’t selected?

Jade: The Captain, who would have two votes, was simply not interesting enough and could be used to hard clear by saying “I’m going to put 2 votes on X.”

The Skip Stopper, who would have prevented players from voting to skip, again was not interesting enough and could be used to hard clear without any doubt. We have others in mind that haven’t been fully scrapped but generally roles gets dropped if there’s no way around using it as a hard clear.

Dave: On paper, the Captain was interesting as both a Crewmate role and an Impostor role. Through actual playtests, we found that the roles wasn’t too fun. Whenever anyone had that role, they felt that it was just okay.

It’s pretty powerful when the 2nd vote breaks a tie, but most of the time the votes didn’t split that way. The reason why the Judge was able to shine was because their ability was so much more impactful. Instead of a small change like having a second vote, they were able to completely take over the meeting.

The high stakes, high rewards, made it exciting for everyone in the meeting. And the fact that it added that layer of suspense during an ejection was the cherry on top.

What were the hardest parts for both your respective fields?

Jade: The hardest part was definitely handling multiple Judges. Behind the scenes, there’s a lot of logic in the backend (thanks Mik!) to determine whose ability should go through and when to refund an Overrule.

Dave: Balancing the role for everyone else in the match was probably the hardest part. The initial version of the Judge didn’t wait for voting to end. As soon as the Judge used their ability, the meeting ended right then and there, and the verdict was carried out!The reason this was changed was because it was very jarring and it was very anti-discussion. I think a good Crewmate meeting ability actually promotes discussion rather than stifling it.

What is the feeling you want players to have when they get the role?

Jade: “Oh nice, I’m the Judge in this round of the video game Among Us.” Just have fun out there!

Dave: That’s a great question! I want players to feel a high level of responsibility. It’s a lot of power to hold in one’s hands. Their ability can be the deciding factor on if the Crewmates win or lose.

Dors: We’ll see how Crewmates balance fun and their new authority. I hope you can be responsible, Crewmates! Thank you both for your time taking us Behind the Beans with the Judge!

That’s all for the this session, Crewmates. If you want more insights to our other roles you can check out our other Behind the Beans sessions on the Viper and Detective, as well as the Tracker and Noisemaker.

Off to play with more roles,

Dors, Jade, and Dave