Imposter Syndrome

Project 1 for CS247G, Autumn 2020

Authors: Jackie Yang, Gloria Liu, and Jean Betterton

Imposter Syndrome is a game about deduction and deception where everyone will question their own and other’s identities. You will either be a scientist who is learning about the ultimate theory to the universe by experimenting or an impostor who wants to steal the ultimate theory from the scientist team by sabotaging the experiments.

A few things that we wanted to achieve when designing the game:

Players — We designed the game with 5 players in mind, with the players divided into two competing teams. Players would be unsure which team other players were on.

Rules — We came up with the idea of letting every player come up with one word related to their word for each round, so that the imposter can get a general sense of what the word could be. Then, players elect an experimental team and that team tries to complete a mission. (more details below)

Conflict — Player conflict would center on completing the tasks, one team of players would try to complete them while the other team tried to sabotage.

Objective — The good team wants to complete 3 out of 5 missions, the bad team wants to fail 3 out of 5 or uncover the code word.

Outcomes — Two outcomes, either the scientist team wins or the imposter.

Resources — Time limits on deliberation, a set amount of information that players are required to share, and information gained from experiment questions and outcomes.

Finally we came up with the instructions as follows.

Setting
5 people are selected to go on a secret scientific mission. Within the group, there are 4 scientists and 1 impostor.

Each scientist knows a theory. Three of them are genius scientists and know the correct theory. One of them is an incompetent scientist and has the wrong theory. The scientists have to use the correct theory to complete the missions. The impostor doesn’t know any theory and wants to sabotage the mission or steal the correct theory.

Gameplay
In the scientific mission, there are 5 experiments. Before each experiment, the members share information*. Then, some members are nominated* to do the experiment. Lastly, the nominated members conduct* the experiment. If 3 out of 5 experiments are successful and the impostor can’t guess* the correct theory then the scientists win. Otherwise, the impostor wins.

*Information Sharing — 2 minutes
Each member takes a turn sharing one word that they believe describes the correct theory. Afterwards, members discuss the shared words and the results of previous experiments.

Scientist Suggestion: You want to figure out the correct theory without letting the impostor figure it out also.

Impostor Suggestion: You want to blend in as a scientist, figure out the correct theory, and maybe give misleading info.

*Nomination process — 1 minute
Starting from the first player, the selected player is the team leader on this experiment. The team leader can select a number of people to be on the team of this experiment. After expressing their opinion on the team selection in order, they vote on the selection. If the majority of players agree, the team proceeds and does the experiment. Otherwise, the next player becomes the team leader and proposes a new team.

Numbers of scientists to nominate for each round: 2, 3, 2, 3, 3

Scientist Suggestion: You want to nominate scientists that will all answer correctly.

Impostor Suggestion: You want to nominate at least one scientist that will answer incorrectly or get nominated yourself.

*Experiment process — 30 seconds
The AI will ask binary questions about the theory to those who are nominated. An experiment is successful only if all of the answers are correct. In the end, the AI will announce the experimental result (success/failure) and how many incorrect answers there were.

Scientist Suggestion: You want to answer the question correctly. Keep in mind that your theory may be incorrect.

Impostor Suggestion: You want to answer the question incorrectly (or answer correctly to gain trust for future sabotages).

*Guessing process — 1 minute
In order to hide the correct theory, each scientist comes up with a “fake theory” and saves it to the computer. At the end of the mission, the impostor accesses the computer and can see the 4 fake theories and the 1 real theory. If the impostor figures out which one is correct, the imposter wins.

Example theories and questions:

bird / turtle

cake / sushi

We had 6 playtesting sessions, 4 of which were in class, from 9/27 to 10/8. In each of the playtests, we had our classmates and friends play the game. Each playtest typically included 1–2 of us as well.

Our 3 biggest takeaways from the playtestings:

We made a series of changes to the game based on what we observed during testing as follows:

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