Spaceteam

What the game is

Spaceteam is a cooperative party game for two to eight players, made by the Canadian developer Henry Smith and first released in 2012. It is free on the App Store and Google Play and is still updated; the current build is version 3 and above.

Everyone needs their own phone or tablet. When a game starts, each player gets a different control panel of buttons, switches, sliders and dials, all labeled with invented machine words: Clip-jawed Fluxtrunions, Beveled Nanobuzzers, Four-stroke Pluckers. Instructions then appear on your screen, but they are almost never for your panel. They are for someone else's.

So the game is played out loud. You read your instruction, shout it across the room, and listen for the ones aimed at you inside the noise everyone else is making. The ship falls apart while you do it. Rounds are short and loud. Apple rates it 9+ for infrequent mild suggestive themes.

What you actually do

You look down, read a command with a timer on it, register that the control it names is not in front of you, and say it clearly enough for seven other people to catch over their own shouting. At the same time you scan your panel for whatever someone else has just called out and hit it before the timer runs out.

As the round goes on the game breaks things on purpose. Panels crack, controls jam, and the invented words get longer and easier to confuse. Getting better is not about reflexes; it is a team learning to shout in turn, repeat rather than assume, and confirm when something has been done.

What it exercises

• Says an unfamiliar phrase clearly and loudly enough to be understood at once.
• Picks one voice out of several talking at the same time.
• Confirms out loud that an instruction has been carried out.
• Waits for a gap rather than shouting over a teammate.

Why we rate it Minimal Worksheet score 30 / 100

1. FitHow much real knowledge or skill does the play itself make you use?25weight 45%

   Fit is scored 25. The design has essentially no other content: each player holds part of the information and none of the means to act on it, so speaking clearly and listening carefully is the mechanism by which the game runs at all. It stays in the twenties because the information itself is nonsense words, so nothing about the content of what is said carries any weight.

2. TransferWill what you practise here work outside the game?22weight 30%

   Transfer is scored 22. Handing over an instruction so someone else can act on it, and confirming that they did, is the same move used in a kitchen, a rehearsal or a team under pressure. The game trains it in a silly register and at absurd speed, which is a real but narrow slice of the skill, and that narrowness is why the number stops short of higher ground.

3. PracticeDoes the game make you use that skill again and again, as it gets harder?50weight 25%

   Practice is scored 50, the strongest of the three. Rounds last minutes, so one evening puts a player through the read, shout, listen and confirm cycle hundreds of times, and groups tend to play several rounds in a row. It falls short of the top because the game is an occasion with other people rather than something a player returns to alone.

What the evidence says

Editorial onlyNobody outside our desk has checked this. It is our reading of how the game plays.

Editorial only. The App Store and Google Play listings confirm the developer, the 2012 release, the free price with in-app purchases, the two to eight player range with one device each, the version requirement for connecting, and the 9+ content rating. They say nothing about outcomes, and no study of this game is claimed. The idea that shouting nonsense at friends gives practice in real verbal coordination is our reading of the mechanic: a description of what the game forces, not a measured transfer.

• https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spaceteam/id570510529?platform=watch ↗
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?hl=en-SG&id=com.sleepingbeastgames.spaceteam ↗