The Mystery of Killing Pulpy Beans Appears Big

Among Us: On Guard was officially unveiled in early June during the Summer Games Show, and it seemed to leave viewers in awe at first. A single-player, story-based version of Among Us? Would that be a really useful thing to check out the series therefore best known for its multiplayer/social features?

Thankfully, we don’t have to wait long to see what the game was all about, as the developers of Innerloth hosted a public demo via Steam, though it’s out of date now. If you missed it, you can’t currently log in to check it out.

But let me bring you up to speed. My background with vanilla Among Us started a few years ago, but I’ve had another go in the end I jumped, I got angry. Since then, I have platinumed the game on PS5, which is not really an easy trophy to get, and it also involved connecting my PS5, Switch, PC, and iPad to try to farm some trophy metrics. Don’t judge. I am completely normal.

So, with enough time to play the original game Among Us to go 100% on the medal list completely, how did I feel about this new demo? So far, On Guard seems to be a good time.

Single player setup

As we’ve already covered, On Guard is single-player, and the story setup is straightforward. You are a new student, so you need training. He’s attached to a simulator that puts him in the Guard bean, a pulpy, no-nonsense Noir-ish type of detective who takes it upon himself to keep the ship’s crew safe. a lot seriously.

It doesn’t take long to find out that his other shipmates have rubbed him the wrong way many times, because of course, they don’t always seem to take safety and security as seriously as he does. The writing choices and dialogues provided are really well done, and often funny.

The demo was extremely short, only running about 10 minutes, but there was still a lot of intrigue packed into the short amount of time. In Truth Among Us, there’s a murder on board (poor, innocent Cook), and as a security guard, you feel ashamed that you couldn’t keep them safe. The crew calls an emergency meeting, and since he was last seen with the body, he’s everyone’s biggest suspect. The old one.

Now, it’s up to you to prove you have nothing to do with it, while trying to survive the chaos that may ensue, as the impostor/murderer is clearly still riding around somewhere. As for the story, that’s all we’ve been hinted at so far. It’s enough to keep me interested, and it’s packed with so many jokes and well-placed references to the original game that I’m already looking forward to checking out the full game release.

Fan Service References Combined with Creative Ideas

Innersloth has loaded On Guard with many references to the original Among Us, so if you’re a fan of the franchise, you’ll be smiling and chuckling every now and then. Common tasks and functions are reimagined, like swiping your keycard in Admin (which is still as blurry as ever).

And it’s a pleasure to see a new version of our familiar ship, now housed in a completely different art environment and filled with realistic characters in each room. In total, we have a Guard, Cook, Operator, Managers, Scientist, Engineer, Doctor and Captain. Every bean has unique, well-recognized and funny personalities, like the Doctor, who is self-centered and addicted to engaging with his social media followers.

You have a task menu, maintained for you by a talking robot friend, that works like a regular log file for any other single-player game, albeit in Among Us – organized in a fun, creative way. You’ll enter gaps, crawl, and find shortcuts from room to room to track down the killer.

You’ll hunt for clues to bring new information to the next emergency meeting, to help prove your innocence, or to be able to get down and start nailing that slick cheater – or cheaters. We don’t know yet if there are more on board.

The game is extremely likable, and often funny, highlighted by how meta this demo was as a whole. Since you’re actually playing from a bean point of view in the simulation, you have someone outside the sim saying things like “This room will be available later, but not in the demo.” It’s clever, meta, and funny all at the same time. I have high hopes for the full experience, because I’ve really enjoyed all the writing and directing so far.

Adequate variety of adhesives

Despite the hyper-short runtime of the demo, I really can’t wait for more of Among Us: On Guard. I’m a little concerned that showing us a small part of the game in the demo would mean that the full version might be shorter than some expect, but of course, the jury is still out on that.

I’m also now starting to speculate that the game’s title design indicates that we will get more games like On Guard, but we play as different beans on the ship. Among Us A Story: Surveillance is the first, but could something like Among Us A Story: The Captain’s Log come later in the future? Based on the On Guard demo, I hope so, because it looks like Innerloth is having a lot of fun with this one, which should hopefully translate to the final product.

Finally, On Guard is said to have at least three different endings based on your dialogue decisions and how the rest of the action unfolds. This means that no matter how long (or short) On Guard ends up being, it still seems designed to jump back in and see what other effects and story paths you can find. So far, I’m personally pretty down on the lot, and I’ll be waiting for more details on future releases whenever Innerloth is ready to share more.

Systems

Number of Players

Single player

Steam Deck Compatibility

Not known

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