Among Imposter Space Murder Fun
Watch your back
Audrey wanted an Among Us birthday. What is Among Us? It’s a video game:
It’s also this:
And this:
And…ok there’s a knife, there’s a gun, it’s not pretty. I don’t even want to include the gifs.
Look, I don’t love the violence. But it’s a game of sneaking around, trying to not be killed, or trying to kill off the others, in order to win. By construct, it’s a game that you play briefly and once a winner is declared, the game can immediately start over. It’s not about permanent consequences. It’s a board game.
So I got over it and themed my daughter’s 7th birthday around a murder game! Yay!
During gameplay, crewmembers are trying to accomplish small tasks to keep their space station running, and imposters are tasked with annihilating the crew. Imposters can kill crewmates off one by one, or sabotage the ship’s reactor or oxygen systems, apparently killing themselves in the process. The imposters are aliens or something. I guess that explains it! *dusts hands of the whole thing*
If the crew completes all their tasks, they win. If the imposters accomplish their grim mission, they win.
This makes it a perfect game for a kid’s party. I set up a bunch of random tasks, and they run around trying to complete them. All I would have to do is occasionally assign an imposter, and they’d do the rest. (I’ve seen them manage this on the playground, no need for me to make it any fancier than that.)
This follows a rubrick for kids parties that I’ve followed since my first born turned one:
Provide fun things to do
…that they can do by themselves…
…so I don’t have to try force a gang of Minute Maid-fueled noise-makers to listen carefully and take turns.
At that first birthday party, the theme was Building Blocks. I bought lots of building blocks. Kids played with building blocks. When people left, I threw building blocks into favor bags. Bingo-bango. No rules, no prizes, no waiting, no whining, and mom gets to enjoy at least a small fraction of the party.
Ok, so I needed to set up tasks.
First I recreated a task called Fix Wiring.
Something so clearly physical was irresistible to me. Old wires, a box, some cutting and painting, magnets hidden underneath to hold wires in place, voila.
“Voila” means it took days to make. I had Audrey help me, which was fun. But after it was done I was like hmm, how many handcrafted things am I doing for this? Oh and then the paint flaked off and the wires were a little short…honestly everything I make could use a second draft.
To take some of the pressure off, I downloaded some easy printables, like these from OriginalMom.com:
And set up some toys we already have that adapted well:
My husband came through with a “working” card swipe machine which randomly gives you a red or green light when you swipe, replicating the annoyance of this task in-game.
In all, we had over a dozen activities, which we placed around the playroom. The kids helped me brainstorm and set up. Audrey was very much in love with all of it. When the kids arrived, she walked them around introducing each station.
Once we hit a critical mass of kids, the games began. Plenty of first-grader intrigue and strategy, such as wandering around clueless, shrieking and running, or wandering away to sit with mom because you’re a bit overwhelmed by it all.
I stayed the heck out of the way as much as possible, and failed to take any photos of any of it.
*dusts hands of the whole thing*
Next time: The Big Commitment Craft
Sounds like a wonderful party.
very cool!