“Spaceteam is a free-to-play local cooperative multiplayer video game developed and published by Henry Smith of Sleeping Beast Games for iOS and Android operating systems. It was released on December 1, 2012 and is described as a ‘cooperative shouting game for phones and tablets’. The game uses multiple smartphone or tablet devices, connected via wifi or bluetooth, to enter a shared game of up to two to four players.” (Wikipedia)
The Apple app store describes the game’s top features as being: teamwork, confusion, shouting, an untimely demise, beveled nanobuzzers, auxiliary technoprobes, and four-stroke pluckers.
After leaving a job at Electronic Arts, Spaceteam designer Henry Smith, began creating Spaceteam as an experiment and an excuse to learn how to code for iOS and Android. Smith has stated on record that his biggest inspiration came from the sci-fi world and from the co-op board game Space Alert.
The game has been incredibly well-received by both critics and players, has won a series of awards (including Game City Prize 2013’s Best Game of 2013, the IndieCade Interaction Award, the A MAZE Indie Connect Festival prize, an International Mobile Gaming Award, the Independent Games Festival 2013 prize, and a showcase at the PAX East Indie Showcase 2013), and has to-date been downloaded by more than 3 million customers.
In the subsequent years, Smith has designed two spin-offs: the digital Spaceteam ESL ( a collaboration with Concordia University), in which the original Spaceteam is redesigned to make use of frequently used English words in an ascending order of difficulty; and a shortly-to-be-released Spaceteam board/card game.