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Get your own private Spaceteam in new funding 'experiment'
The developer of Spaceteam is creating a funding club, of sorts, for fans sucked in by the game's exuberant blend of starship management and verbal gibberish. The iOS and Android hit hinges on loud cooperation, with players getting just a section of the ship's control panel on their screens and bellowing orders that would barely make sense on Star Trek. That bold spirit of cooperation is being sought for the "Spaceteam Admiral's Club," a Kickstarter that seeks to ensure a year's worth of free games. Dubbed an "experiment" by Spaceteam designer Henry Smith, the Admiral's Club is asking for $80,000 CAD to create several free games – for everyone, not just backers. "I want to continue making interesting, accessible games but I don't want to charge money for them," Smith says. "I want them to be free, for everyone. By joining the club, you're making it possible for me to keep working on free games for a whole year." Smith proposes two games to start with: a locally cooperative treasure-hunting game called Blabyrinth, and another spaceship game, Shipshape, in which players pilot ships crafted from modular components. Those will take up the first year, alongside a few upgrades to Spaceteam, like additional languages and adjustable difficulty. There are several Kickstarter reward tiers, as usual, but these are strongly focused around Spaceteam merchandise, like embroidered patches, and customizations of the game itself. Smith is offering not only custom commands ("Incentivize core competency!"), but a fully personalized, private Spaceteam made from the graphics, words and sounds you send over. After you send $5,000 CAD over, that is. [Image: Sleeping Beast Games]
Spaceteam might not have been made had money been a priority
Spaceteam creator Henry Smith revealed in a recent retrospective piece that he believes his iOS and Android game, which has teams of players coordinating tasks on a spaceship a la Star Trek, would not have been made had making money off the game taken top priority. Smith discussed his game's success - and the many ways he defines that word - in the retrospective due to a Twitter discussion that arose after he posted the game's sales numbers. Smith wrote that the numbers were not "bad news" as some had claimed, and clarified that his goal was never to make money. He wrote that, "Worrying about how to 'monetize' effectively might have compromised the game design and almost certainly would have hindered ... getting my name out because there would have been much more resistance to sharing and spreading the game." Smith repeatedly stressed dissatisfaction with current business models and claimed that he wants his future projects to be free, like Spaceteam. However, Smith still needs to earn a living, so he plans on holding a crowdfunding campaign. "This feels more honest and sustainable to me and the pay-what-you-can model seems fair for everyone else," he wrote. Smith closed with the promise he'll be sharing more details about the crowdfunding campaign soon.
Daily iPad App: Spaceteam brings sci-fi fun to iOS and Android
My husband was excited and kept egging me on, but I was pretty nervous. This was the sort of thing that tested your marriage, and the only thing standing between us and defeat was our ability to work as a team. Finally, I agreed to play Spaceteam with him. Spaceteam has been on iOS since last year, but it released an update recently that added support for iOS 7 and Android. This allows the game to be played in a multi-OS household. There are no solo missions. The game requires two to four players connected on the same Wi-Fi network or via Bluetooth. Experimental modes will add support for up to 8 players on Wi-Fi, perhaps 6 or 7 on Bluetooth. We played over Wi-Fi, and the game immediately detects how many others on the same network are playing. Apple and Android logos in the corner show how many are playing and what platform they're on. The game is like an extreme version of Nintendo's Warioware: Smooth Moves. You receive a set of instructions to execute before you're swallowed by a supernova, smacked by an asteroid or devoured by a wormhole. Unlike Warioware, you're actually shouting these instructions to your partners -- who has panels that you don't -- while trying to listen to orders from the other people in the game. The game quickly places stress on your team, with broken panels swinging wildly that you have to fix, broken translator circuits, complex picture symbols to be deciphered and goo you have to swipe away. At the same time, you're shaking your tablet or twisting it upside down to avoid other disasters. Then there are the pilot errors. My husband kept turning off his tablet by accident while I dropped my iPad by flipping it in my hands too fast. I don't even want to know what the neighbors were thinking as we shouted commands such as "vent your frustration," "set the sigmaclapper to 2" and other technobabble at 2 a.m. My biggest issue with the game is that it could really use a help screen. We weren't sure of the correct way to twist the iPad to avoid the magnetic fields until I Googled it (for newbies, just turn your iPad upside down so the home button is facing up), and a basic rundown of the symbols would be nice. Spaceteam is a free download with a number of US$.99 in-app purchases that adds on to your ship and unlocks different challenges. You can play on both iPhone and iPad, but I prefer the larger screen of the iPad -- especially as the game went from pretty easy to hard to oh-my-god-driving-in-Manhattan-is-easier. We made it through 11 stages on our best effort before we were finally killed because of our failure to understand alien languages. After each level, Mike gasped, "Oh my God!" while I tried to calm my racing heart. As we were awarded our posthumous medals -- him for valor and me for agility -- he immediately asked if we could play it with four people. "It'll be nuts," he vowed. He's absolutely right.
The must-try Spaceteam update adds challenges, new play modes
Spaceteam is a great app that we haven't mentioned much, but the TUAW team certainly knows about it, as we played during most of our downtime at Macworld. The lastest update has made it even better. Spaceteam is based on an amazing idea. It's a multiplayer game for one to four (or more, see below) iOS devices. Every player gets a panel of seemingly nonsensical touchscreen controls for a space ship, and gets orders for those controls ("push button 1" or "turn knob to 3," for example) at the top of the screen. The twist, however, is that the command you get is usually for controls on someone else's screen. When played correctly, the game prompts you and your friends to shout crazy commands to each other, like "Turn the astro-generator to five!" or "Jump-start the blast engine!" With the new update, Spaceteam is absolutely free to download. There are new IAP packs to buy, which unlock new skins or control sets, or even open up new challenges or achievements to earn. Additionally, new massive multiplayer modes let you mess around with more than four players if you happen to have a larger group. So not only is the game great, but the devs are working hard to provide lots of other content. It's quite impressive, even beyond the initial idea of just having players, as the description says, "shout technobabble at each other until their ship explodes." If you haven't tried Spaceteam yet, it's a must-play -- go grab a friend with another iOS device, and have some fun.
PAX East Indie Showcase to include Spaceteam, Saturday Morning RPG
The indie games featured in this year's PAX East Indie Showcase have been revealed. Seven games will be showcased at the event this year, which highlights excellence in mobile games we've never heard of.The full list includes Sleeping Beast Games' iOS party game Spaceteam, Little Chomp by ClutchPlay Games, PagodaWest's Major Magnet, Trinket Studios' puzzler Orion's Forge, Saturday Morning RPG from Mighty Rabbit Studios, Time Surfer by Kumobious and Third Eye Crime by Moonshot Games.
