Hi Crewmates!

Oops I totally forgot to write a July dev log, sorry about that, please forgive. It’s been busy!

You’re probably wondering what we’re working on, and I can confidently tell you that it’s... still a secret. Heh.

To explain - we try not to announce things until they’re locked in and confirmed that they’re ready to release. (For instance, we can fail a check and have to go through an entire certification process again which is reviewed by people that need a minimum of X number of days to approve.)



Anyways, all that to say is our next big update is being worked on, and hopefully we can reveal that to you pretty soon. The team has been working SUPER hard. For now, here’s what I can talk about:

• This is a sneak peek at some art from the update that I cropped and didn’t tell people I would post, shh. For your eyes only.

Actually as an apology for missing the other dev log, here’s another peek at something. Abstract, I know.

• Summer merch drop: Our newest merch drop features 3 summer themed shirts, hoodies & tanks, 2 satin headscarves, transparent holo tote bag, our Dunkin Donuts Korea collab water bottles, acrylic stands, and more! Some of these things are limited edition so make sure you hop on it.

• Retail Among Us drop: If you're in North America/Europe, you might've spotted that we have OFFICIAL Among Us products in stores now like Target, Hot Topic, Walmart, and more! Finally!!!! Whether it's 8" plushies, mystery capsules, or stamps, we're reallllly excited to have it out on shelves. If you pick any of our merch up, please tweet us or share it with us!!

• Other small updates: Currently rebuilding our website so it looks nicer and we can conglomerate our dev logs there, PuffballsUnited finally went on his first vacation after 5 years, and we’ve hired on Hannako and Jake!

That's it for now, short and sweet. Bigger update as soon as I can give you it, I promise. The patience will be worth it, I hope!! We have SO MUCH planned - and not even just this next update. We're already planning for the big update after that!

Cheers,
Victoria

Social Links
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmongUsGame
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@amongus
Discord: http://discord.gg/innersloth

Hi Crewmates!

Quick post to let you know about the changes in the latest patch for version 2021.6.30.

• Added vent cleaning task. Cleaning the vent will prevent any impostors from using that specific vent, but Impostors can still use other vents and the vent will be usable once it’s cleaned. If an Impostor is already camping out in a vent and then you start cleaning that vent, it'll boot them out with a dramatic sound and you'll see who it is. Surprise!
  
  
• New languages. Traditional and Simplified Chinese and Irish localization added.

• Getting stuck in place after a meeting is fixed. This was the biggest issue with the latest update, so run free now!! Be free beans!!
  
• Scaling on "SHH" screen fixed. YES I read your comments on the SHH screen. The absolute hate that poor screen got, my goodness. I had to give it 3 tubs of ice cream to feel better. It's okay though, the world is aligned once again, the proportions have been fixed after it got weirdly borked.
  
  
• Geoff eyepatch is now (sadly) back to being a mask. :(
  
• Clouds in the Airship no longer move in the wrong direction. No more backwards progress! Onward!
  
• Upload Data phone colors fixed. I have no clever caption for this.
  
• All major buttons are now localized. Yeah I’m really running out of fun ways to make this content interesting.
  
• Other minor visual and localization bug fixes. Our programming and QA team did a really great job please give them a psychic high five.

• Wizard hat still missing. Still casting an invisibility spell. Working on finding it, sorry!
  
• 4:3 resolution still needs to be scaled. That’ll be addressed.
  
• And quite a few others, but those are the biggest ones I'll list out.

And if you're a fan of grabbing physical editions of the game on console, pre-orders for it has just opened up!! (Release date for the game on Xbox and PlayStation has NOT been announced yet.) It comes with a ton of goodies with 3 different editions - Ejected, Crewmate, and Impostor! {LINK REMOVED}Check them out and pre-order here​.



That’s it for now! Don’t forget the roadmap is the place to go if you’re interested in what we’re working on next, and check out our updated mod and fan creation policy if that’s something you were curious about.

See you next time!

Victoria

Social Links
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmongUsGame
TikTok: https://twitter.com/AmongUsGame
Discord: http://discord.gg/innersloth​

IT’S AMONG US’ BIRTHDAYYYYYYYYYYYY!

On June 15th 2018, we released Among Us... as a local, mobile only game with just a few players. And now in 2021, not only is the game out on PC, Nintendo Switch, mobile and soon Xbox and PlayStation, but we also have this GIANT community of Crewmates and Impostors all over the world???

You really showed up!!

To celebrate, 15 player lobbies are OUT NOW, which includes things like:

• An improved art style (subtle, but cleaner and easier for us to animate) - 4K BEAN GRAPHICS ARE THE FUTURE.
  
• 6 brand new colors: Tan, Gray, Banana, Rose, Maroon, and Coral -- I have seen absolute blood baths in the comments section of people claiming Rose and Banana for their mains. Be safe out there. The pastel stans are thirsty for their cute colours, and rightfully so. (Also I know these colours are not super colourblind friendly - we want to move away from colours being the main way people identify Crewmates, so hang tight!)
  
• A new kill screen meeting menu that indicates who died between rounds -- Yeah that's right I know you don't keep track of who dies!! This is a call out to you Steve. (I don't know a Steve but whoever is named Steve must be really freaked out right now.)
  
• Ability to honk horn added to The Airship 😀 If you have the “Stabilize Steering” task, bop the horn to honk it. Most important update in my humble opinion.

And various bug fixes:

• The shop works in multiple languages again
  
• Right Hand Man skin kill animation makes the WEEEEH sound again
  
• Kick/Ban icon remains persistent on screen if chat is open after voting ends
  
• Made it more clear you can change the chat type (Free Chat VS Quick Chat) in the game settings if you are logged in
  
• Various localization fixes
  
• Players will stop moving when meetings are called

Whew! Wondering what's next? Make sure you check out the Among Us Roadmap to see what our plans are.

Cheers,
Victoria

Social Links
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmongUsGame
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@amongus
Discord: http://discord.gg/innersloth

Hey Crewmates!

Just a quick update, but as part of the Summer Games Fest, we revealed a roadmap for Among Us' future.



Here's what we have planned:

• The next big update will be 15 player support with new colors (including Rose, Gray, Tan, and more), a slight graphics update, mobile controller support, and more. Details on this coming to you sooner than you think...!

Then, in no particular order, here's what we want to work on:

• A new map - Map 5! Very secret. What's it gonna be on? Don't ask me! I'm sworn to secrecy, I'm bad at secrets, and I would like to keep my job.
  
• Achievements. For anyone who wants to prove they are pros at the game. AKA not me, I'm a very anxious Impostor.
  
• Account linking between platforms. All your save data and cosmetics, available on your platform of choice.
  
• New roles and ways to play. VERY SECRET. OR MAYBE I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT'S UP.
  
• Hide n’ Seek mode. Come out come out wherever you areee.
  
• Visor cosmetics. Even more ways to fix a ship in style! Yes it may block your vision but at least you'll be fashionable.
  
• Consoles (Xbox and PlayStation). I get it, you want to know when. I can't tell you. I'M SORRY. When I can I will!!
  
• Take a nap at some point, idk, the churn of capitalism is rough

Once we can give you more concrete dates we will, but there’s A LOT to be excited for in the coming months. Keep an eye out this weekend too on our Twitter or via the newsletter... there's more we have in store for you.

See you soon!
Victoria

Social Links
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmongUsGame
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@amongus
Discord: http://discord.gg/innersloth

Hey Crewmates!

Not a lot of super exciting news for this dev log as we work on fixing bugs and getting everything ready for our next update. But here’s a quick run down of what we’ve been working on. Boop.


If you don’t see your bug mentioned here, know that we’re aware of them! (E.g. missing skins, lag, various visual glitches, etc.) Here’s a brief summary of what’s been fixed though:

• Airship uses proper background on Create Game screen now
  
• Authentication issues when players tried to sign in has been fixed on PC and mobile
  
• Ping counter re-added
  
• Region text no longer always shows North America, even when in other regions
  
• "PLAYERNAME left the game." alignment fixed
  
• Other scaling/formatting issues fixed
  
• Miscellaneous fixes to accounts - mostly backend stuff
  
• Reflow in 2021.4.12 removed MismatchedProductUserIDs and NullContinuanceToken errors (multi account/device support)
  
• Vitals color bug has been "fixed" (vitals no longer shows color names at all)

Stuck on Quick Chat and changing your username? If you’ve created an Account (or gotten parental permission) and are logged in, you can change the chat in Settings and your name in the Account tab!

- Art style: We're working on an updated art style for Among Us! Don’t worry though, it’s not too different from what you’re used to. Just cleaner lines and other improvements that’ll make animating it on the backend easier. … But imagine how horrifying it would be if it looked like this though.

- 15 player lobbies: Gather all your friends because we’re going to expand the lobby sizes! (Don’t have enough friends? Then invite your enemies. Make new enemies. Everyone is now your enemy.)

- Colours: There are a total of 6 new colours coming to the update, which we'll be revealing more in May. Considering all the colours we already have, it was actually kind of difficult to find colours that will automatically be visually distinct from all the other ones. But in terms of accessibility and colourblindness, we hope to move away from colours being the defining way people identify each other. We’re workshopping ideas for that though.

- New meeting screen: A bigger lobby means our old meeting screen won’t be able to handle all the new crewmates, so expect a bit of reworking there. There’ll also be a new intro when meetings are called that accentuates the information between the reporter and who exactly died between rounds, as seen below. Note the image below might not be final.



- General QoL update: We’ve been working with some partners to get our whole website revamped, which hopefully will give us a more centralized place to give you these updates and all our news. Plus we hope to get a better bug reporting system and general page where you can keep up to date on all the bug fixes we’ve been working on. It’s been all over the place so far, and having a more streamlined process will be easier for everyone!

----

That’s all for now! Thanks for the patience as we tackle all the bugs and get this crew wrangled in. Keep an eye out for more announcements in the future though... we’ve always got a little secret something in the works.

Cheers,
Victoria and the Innersloth Team

Social Links
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmongUsGame
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@amongus
Discord: http://discord.gg/innersloth

Hello Crewmates!

Here are some hot fixes for the latest version of Among Us.

• Account login flow significantly reworked
  
• Multiple users can now log in to the same device (no more MismatchedProductUserIDs error)
  
• Missing skins from Airship Bundle should be fixed
  
• Text graphical update
  
• Updated translations
  
• Setting an invalid birthdate no longer makes account initialization fail
  
• Sabotage menu no longer replaces minimap for Impostors
  
• Room names are now consistently layered on the map
  
• Develop Photos task does not finish instantly
  
• Comms sabotage can no longer be repaired by ghosts, Impostors can now repair
  
• Other various bug fixes

Thanks for playing as always!

Victoria and the Innersloth Team

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmongUsGame
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@amongus
Discord: http://discord.gg/innersloth

Welcome recruits!

Hop onto the newest Among Us map – the Airship! Out now on all platforms, work together on this airship to carry out the greatest plan... though whether that’s as a Crewmate or Impostor is another question.

• The 4th map, and the biggest one yet
  
• New tasks including jewel polishing, emptying trash (wow fun), and more
  
• The ability to pick the room you start in
  
• All new areas to explore (or get murdered in)
  
• Improved mobility with ladders and moving platforms
  
• New free hats including a heart pin, angry eyebrows, unicorn head, udder, and more!
  
• Inspired by our other game, The Henry Stickmin Collection

Furthermore, an all-new Airship Skin Bundle is available for purchase! Check it out here and get fancy new gear to impress all your friends and enemies. Each new outfit in this bundle comes with its own custom kill animation! Not that you’ll need it. Since you’re not an Impostor... right? Right??



If you saw our dev log last week, you’ll know we have a new Code of Conduct and Account system. Please take the time to read through the Code of Conduct as you’ll be subject to them even if you claim you haven’t read it.

Here’s a recap on what the account system is all about, you can read the full explanation here:

• Right now it’s focused on reporting and moderation capabilities, but in the future we hope to add a friend system and the ability to transfer your cosmetics between devices.
  
• You can only make on account per device - if multiple people are using the same device it'll be locked for the time being, but we're planning a hot fix for that soon.
  
• You will be able to report if someone in the game is acting inappropriately, including: inappropriate names, inappropriate chat, cheating/hacking, and harassment/misconduct. Consequences can range from temporary to permanent bans (including alternate accounts).
  
• You must create an account to access free chat (without it you will have to use Quick Chat for safety!) and to change your display name freely.
  
• If you are under the minimum age of digital consent in your country (for most countries 13 is the minimum age), you have to get a parent/guardian's permission to access free chat (which then allows you to create an account), or change your display name.
  
• Without an account (or if you're a minor who doesn't want to ask your parent/guardian for approval), you can still play via Guest Mode. This locks you to Quick Chat and doesn't allow you to change your name other than with a randomly generated name.

We’re still working on a number of measures to keep our game as safe as possible! This is just the beginning!

Provided everything goes well and there aren’t massive bugs we need to handle from the Airship launch, we’ve got lots on our plate in terms of future plans! With our 2 new recent programmer hires we're definitely on track for faster work. We’ll make a public roadmap at some point, but for now, here’s what’s on the table:

• A full art style revamp! Puffballs has completely updated the art style with cleaner lines and an easier animation process. Can’t wait for you to see that soon!
  
• We’re aiming to create larger lobby sizes so you can play with up to 15 players. Considering The Airship’s size, we hope this will be a fun way to gather with even more of your friends.
  
• More frequent, transparent updates from us! One of our big goals is to just show you the development process, what goes on behind-the-scenes, and for you grow with us. We’ve learned so much and don’t want to hide anything from you when it comes to this stuff. It’s weird!

You’ve come so far with us, and we can’t wait to keep working on the game for you. You in? Cool! Spread the word and we can’t wait to see you in the game.

Cheers,

Victoria and the Innersloth Team

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmongUsGame
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@amongus
Discord: http://discord.gg/innersloth

One more week until the new map drops, Crewmates!

I wanted to jump in and quickly explain the account system that'll be launching with the map, since I'm going to assume once the update launches very few people are going to read the dev log, lol.

Right now accounts are focused on reporting and moderation capabilities, but in the future we hope to add a friend system and the ability to transfer your cosmetics between devices. Cool? Cool!

• You will be able to report if someone in the game is acting inappropriately, including: inappropriate names, inappropriate chat, cheating/hacking, and harassment/misconduct. Consequences can range from temporary to permanent bans (including alternate accounts).
  
• ​Note that reports will be read by people (not bots!) and you will need to provide a reason as to why you are reporting.
  
• No linking of multiple accounts yet (Steam account is only on Steam, mobile on mobile, etc.) It’ll be coming soon though.
  
• You must create an account to access free chat (without it you will have to use Quick Chat for safety!)
  
• You must create an account to freely change your display name. If you do not create an account, there will be randomized names you can choose from.
  
• Usernames are not exclusive. Multiple people can have the same username. (So if you take the username "PuffballsUnited", other people can still use "PuffballsUnited".)
  
• If you are under the minimum age of digital consent in your country (for most countries 13 is the minimum age), you have to get a parent/guardian's permission to access free chat (which then allows you to create an account), or change your display name.
  
• Without an account (or if you're a minor who doesn't want to ask your parent/guardian for approval), you can still play via Guest Mode. This locks you to Quick Chat and doesn't allow you to change your name other than with a randomly generated name.
  
• A corresponding Code of Conduct will be available on our website that outlines the expectations for our community and consequences.

The launch of an age gate, Quick Chat and an accounts system that requires children to obtain a parent/guardian's permission to use free chat or change their display names are all our initial efforts towards making it more safe for children to play Among Us, and comply with various global requirements in the process. Thanks for sticking with us!

We showed off two of the new, free hats that'll be coming with the Airship update. Angry eyebrows and Unicorn hat!

There are still a few more to show off on Twitter as we lead up to the map drop.



There will also be an Airship Skin Pack you can buy along with the game. It'll include 3 new skins (one of which has a custom kill animation) and 13 new hats! You've probably spotted quite a few of them in the opening to the Airship's trailer.



See you in a week! Pray our servers don't die haha agh.

Cheers,

Victoria and the Innersloth team

Hi Crewmates!

We know people have been excited and waiting for the map – thank you to those who have been SO supportive and understanding. It’s really helped us out mentally these past few months.




This free update will have all new tasks, the ability to pick the room you start in, ladders, a basic account system for moderation and... more?! (Some new free hats as thanks for being so patient with us perhaps?! 👀)



In an effort to continue being as transparent as possible with our process, we wanted to share exactly what we’ve been doing and why things have taken longer than we wanted.

Let’s get started!


I’m going to try and do my best to explain everything in as few words as possible, but please remember there’s a lot of nuance to any and all situations!

Why did we not release a map ASAP?
I explained this a bit in our last dev log, but Among Us’ popularity was something no one expected, and quite late into 2020 too. (Thank you for that!!) We had already considered the game done and had moved onto something else. And while it may seem odd things took a few months, it’s quite normal in game development, especially for a team of our size. When you work in an official capacity and need to handle various business needs, there are more legal considerations that need to be put into it versus if it were just a side project or mod!

Additionally, creating a map and updates isn’t as simple as creating one aspect of the game and throwing it onto the PC. Because our game is cross-platform, it means EVERYTHING needs to work on as many devices as possible. (Every kind of smartphone and its various versions, console, etc.) You may have noticed most modifications to the game focus on just PC, as that makes development much easier.

When a game becomes unexpectedly popular it’s great, but it brings a whole slew of other problems we were extremely new to, which I’ll outline below. That being said, we're extremely grateful for all of the success we’ve found. The explanation of problems is just that – an explanation! Not a complaint. Thank you for letting us be a part of your lives. 😊

Maintenance
Multiplayer online games have a lot that goes into them – especially one with as many players as Among Us. Time gets taken away from other tasks because we’ll need to put out a fire somewhere else e.g. when servers go down, we get reports of hackers, etc. Because it means it often affects millions of players, these are high priority items we need to immediately switch to fixing. The more people playing, the more things can go wrong sometimes!

Hiring
Why not just hire a ton of people? Well, for one we want to keep our close studio dynamics – the bigger the group, the more problems you run into with management, interpersonal clashes, and just overall coziness! If you’ve worked on a group project, you know having more people isn’t always necessarily a good thing. And it also matters WHO those people are.

Plus, when you're a smaller team, hiring is a very distracting process. For example – if Forest, our one programmer at the time, has to be taken away from work on the map to sort through hundreds of resumes, interview a ton of programmers, and set up their employee onboarding, it takes up weeks and weeks of work AND 100% of our programming power.

Finally, we don’t want to treat our team members poorly. Properly setting up insurance, vacation, onboarding, etc. Taking care of people is the priority, always! Right now we're a team of 5 and we hope to continue staying pretty small and cozy, but there are some new hires on the way too.

That being said, we did bring on outside groups to help. It helped the servers stabilize when we moved to Multiplay. Play Everyware made getting Switch out in three months possible. Dual Wield handles all the merch. Legal and accounting and HR are all new partnerships that reduced the burden of running Innersloth. But these all have a different feel than hires who are going to shape the way Among Us and Innersloth work in the years to come.

Daily business. So. Many. Meetings.
The thing about being a studio and a ~corporate entity~ is that we actually aren’t able to slap together things and release them without thinking of several other affecting factors now. (Even small updates!) It was easier when we were just a group of 3 and there weren’t really many demands of us, but now things have changed and we need to follow a more rigid process since sooo many other people are involved. Include the fact these things often require meetings that take hours, multiple times during a week, and that for a while our one programmer was also doing all the non-game/business stuff meant a lot.

You also may have noticed how much fake Among Us merch has been out there. We had to get legal help for that, but the way IP laws work is that the only ones with the power to talk to lawyers and have things taken down are Innersloth officially. That definitely groups into the sheer amount of meetings we have, and the considerations we need to make. We want to encourage fan art and totally welcome it! But we don’t want corporations taking advantage or ripping off anyone.

Honestly we’re also a bit tired! Since Among Us blew up so late in 2020, it meant we weren't able to take a proper winter holiday, and sometimes we can end up working quite late handling things. This isn’t something to be proud of at all, especially since the games industry often has a problem with crunch that we want to avoid. But we’re trying to be transparent with you, and we want to be better about this.


Programming tasks
All things considered, programming was one of the easier parts. (You’ll see why when you read further along.) We've already made three maps, so if all we had to do was make a map for PC and mobile and release it, we might have finished it last year. But it wasn't going to be as good as we wanted and it would have messed with the Switch launch, so we hard stopped to improve Switch launch.

Approvals
Now that we’re on (and coming to more) consoles, there is an actual approval process we have to go through with them. We can't just put out an update in two days anymore!

Accounts & Priorities
The most important thing for us when Among Us blew up was to ensure safety, moderation, and reporting. We consider it our responsibility to create a positive, healthy community. Thank you to our community for being excellent to each other in games! That being said, we were very much aware that there was still a moderation problem we needed to tackle, and that became our priority.

A proper moderation system is one that is extremely difficult and time consuming. It is not as easy as just having a “report” button and having an algorithm ban someone after a certain number of reports. There is a lot to consider:

• Servers that accounts are hosted on: Accounts need to be hosted on servers. What servers, and where? How do you ensure they are safe so your accounts don’t get hacked?
  
• Privacy: Do your terms of service for accounts follow privacy guidelines? Are they respectful of personal information?
  
• Legal: Are accounts complying with laws from all around the globe?
  
• Moderation: What should be able to be reported? How much is handled by algorithms? When it comes to moderation there is often A LOT of nuance. When should things be sent to a human? How can you prevent false reports?
  
• Programming: Well. Someone has to make this system happen!
  
• Because of these considerations (and more!), accounts ended up taking longer than expected. It MIGHT’VE been possible to launch The Airship before accounts, but we didn’t want to do that. It would be wrong to launch the new map, get all hyped, and pretend like there were no issues with toxicity. So these two things needed to launch together.

Bugs/Quality
While the map was finished, it had some completely unacceptable bugs. We wanted to make sure we fixed the biggest ones (that we could find, at least). And keep in mind each platform has its own unique bugs!

Whew. Did you actually read that all? Proud of you! I hope that helped understand our situation a little better, and also show you WHY we’re so so grateful to everyone for being extremely patient with us as we learned all of this. We never want to hide anything from you when you’ve shown us so much support. So when this map finally launches... we really hope you love it, and we’ll continue doing our best for you!

Cheers,

Victoria & the Innersloth team

---
Social Links
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmongUsGame
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@amongus
Discord: http://discord.gg/innersloth

Hey Crewmates!

We've been working on fixes over the weekend for the game, sorry about for the issues! Whew.

Version 2021.3.5 updates includes fixes for:

• Blank screen when creating a new room
  
• Players unable to find any lobbies in the public list
  
• Age gate for Quickchat is 13+
  
• Black screen in lobbies and creating games
  
• Desync issues should be fixed when everyone in the game is updated to the latest version. However we're waiting on approval from the store for iOS, so there may be some people in public lobbies that still have the old version.

We're still aware of visual bugs, clipping, and other gameplay bugs. Super appreciate the patience and support as we get these sabatoges fixed. :)



- Victoria