Here’s the secret that Spaceteam hides: it’s not at all the co-op “space bridge simulator” that you might first assume from a cursory glance at its serviceably rendered and awkwardly labelled display screenshots. You might assume that its a simply a game about deep coordination, overcoming imaginary adversity, delegating responsibility.

It’s only when you see it in action (as via the video below), or get begrudgingly roped into playing it, that it all suddenly comes clear. All of those things are half-correct, but they don’t strike at the core of what Spaceteam actually is, which is the barest, perfect framework that mediates the pure joy of drunkenly shouting nonsense with and at friends.

Created by former BioWare programmer Henry ‘Sleeping Beast‘ Smith, its mechanics couldn’t be simpler: each of up to four players is given a distinct set of buttons, switches & dials and a rapid-fire set of commands that need to be completed within seconds.

Those commands might be on your own display, but more likely are on one of the others, and so each round begins and sustains itself with all players shouting at once for the others to carry out the command in front of them.

Spaceteam wouldn’t work at all if it didn’t elicit an extremely finely-tuned sense of impending panic, which comes not just from its countdown timer for each command, but its dynamically decaying display — each panel popping off its hinges and bursting into showers of sparks the worse you and your team perform, and external asteroid & wormhole threats that, typically, only one of you spots and needs to suddenly relay to the rest.

Even running at peak, calm capacity, you and your teammates will find the situation rapidly devolve into unmanageable chaos, usually within well less than a small handful of minutes, but, like all the best infinitely replayable games, a fast end always feels like your fault, and you’re consistently certain you can do better, this time, if everyone would just chill, the, fuck, out for like half a second and work as a team.

Smith seems to have anticipated that the game might not spread as virally as it has without being released for free — making it more or less impossible for your friends to refuse to join in — with optional micro-purchase packs that unlock trivial, cosmetic upgrades that serve as little more than a tip-jar to show your appreciation, which, to be honest, won’t take more than a few rounds for you to do, as you quickly realize that it is, in all honestly, one of the year’s best and most thoughtfully designed multiplayer experiences. [Spaceteam (App Store link)]

A trademark slender & serene version of Capcom stalwart Mega Man by Melbourne street artist Ghostpatrol, who you may remember from one of this site’s last best art gallery posts from its former life as Offworld.

Like much of Ghostpatrol’s recent output, it’s available as a very limited Gocco print direct from the artist, where you can also find a bunch of other prints, risograph books & more. See more of his output here.

Craig ‘ishisoft‘ Forrester’s tribute to the quieter side of Polytron’s Fez: quietly sitting with a notebook and slowly wending your way through its puzzles.

The process is best documented by the fantastic (and super spoiler heavy) Fez Notes blog from many months back (my own notes reached up to six, dense pages). (via TigTumblr, who also spotlighted this amazing ‘A Fez Odyssee’ illustration)

With just over a day left to contribute to Double Fine’s latest season of their two week, five-game prototyping session, Amnesia Fortnight and receive all the games and video updates (plus several earlier prototypes), it seemed like high time for a wrapup of the concept art & illustrations that’ve been produced so far, because, almost instantly, each one has become a game I’m immensely excited for.

At the top is one shot from the Ico-inspired adventure The White Birch, below is the zero-episode of the daily updates the team has been providing over the course of the past week, and after the fold, a selection of the rest of the new games taken from Double Fine’s recently launched Tumblr.

If you like what you see (and you will!) don’t lose your last chance to support the cause and get all the eventual games for yourself.

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On top of the already-shattering news that I’ll never get to visit Keita Takahashi’s isle of dinosaur butts, one of the saddest parts of the shuttering of Tiny Speck’s web MMO Glitch (which officially shut down over the weekend) was the thought that no one was going to be able to see the amazing spin-off work being done right here in Austin by local audio heroes GL33k.

But then! From out of nowhere, Tiny Speck announced that GL33k’s contribution, the iPad music-creation tool known as Glitchamaphone, will still be soon available on the App Store, as a final digital memento of the service.

I played with an in-progress build a few months back, and it’s as slick as the video at top leads you to believe, though it’ll now be obviously stripped of previously planned functionality to send your music into the MMO itself, where you would have been able to share and remix your friends’ tracks.

The project’s not a half-mile away from another big original project being concurrently worked on at GL33K: Cosmic DJ, about which you can expect more on soon.. In the meantime, sign up at the Glitchamaphone site to be notified when the app goes live.

A note to our friends in the Netherlands that this Friday, December 14th, through Sunday, December 16th, Art@DeBoo will be hosting the 2012 Playful Arts Festival, a weekend of games focused on “collaborative play” that will include all of the (now Kickstarted!) Sportsfriends lineup — Joust, BaraBariBall, Hokra & Pole Riders — as well as the live-orchestrated Cello Fortress and many more.

Global Game Jam & Dutch Game Garden organizer Zuraida ‘zo-ii‘ Buter curated the lineup, all of which you can see here, as well as a special Saturday night performance lineup that will include Kaho Abe‘s “two-player hyper-interactive, physical game”, Hit Me.

Find out ticketing and location information at the Playful Arts Festival website.

Only four remain of this ultra limited edition (of ten!) print run by Andy ‘oktotally‘ Helms, featuring a semi-#sworcery-ish assortment of Metal Gear Solid 3‘s antagonists, which also comes with a bonus larger print of any of the panels you prefer.

Scroll back through the local Helms archives and watch it stretch back full circle to his original Snake Eater sketches from 2009, and visit his oktotally tumblr for more fantastic stuff both pixel & non.

Frequently-featured artist Daniel Bressette’s latest (and awesomely starkest) latest is this kaiju-esque Metroid T-shirt, now available through Fangamer, and described as follows: “Civilizations crumble as the King of the Parasites descends from the skies! Behold the fell majesty, the speechless terror, the black fear from the depths of space: PARASITO.”

Personally, I sort of want the whole package just for this amazing accompanying badge. See more of Bressette’s work at his portfolio site.

Another tribute to the final weekend of the Sportsfriends Kickstarter, this time from local fave comic artist Maré Odomo, with an illustrated breakdown of why you should definitely kick in.

The eagle-eyed will note that not only does Venus Patrol designer Cory Schmitz make a guest appearance, but also chipscene regulars Anamanaguchi (“in someone’s living room”), my Wild Rumpus cohorts from this year’s Wild Rumpus/One Life Left/Venus Patrol GDC party, and David Mauro’s “Babycastles no Fukushuu: Manhattan Fury” & Hilary Florido’s “Codependent No Moe” custom-painted arcade cabinets for NYC game-event group Babycastles.

As before, this is the last weekend to make a difference in bringing all of the Sportsfriends games to a wider audience: donate to the campaign at Kickstarter.

Artist, game-maker and our own resident TIGSource DevLog editor Dominique ‘Dom2D‘ Ferland does faux-anaglyph justice to Sportsfriends, the previously-featured four-game ultra-collection of local-multiplayer greatness, including Johann Sebastian Joust, BaraBariBall, Hokra and Super Pole Riders.

The collection is in the home stretch of its Kickstarter and still needs a lotta love — dig deep this weekend and help bring these games to the masses, before it’s too late!