Spaceteam is in These Lists
In addition to the similar games listed above, which have been linked to this game specifically in the database, you may find games with a similar theme to Spaceteam in the following lists:
Play is more fun when it’s shared. This is as true about video games as it is when building a massive sandcastle on the beach or playing hopscotch in the playground. Finding brilliant team games is a great way to involve more people in the fun and share the experience together as a family. More experienced players naturally help novices contribute to the team.
Along with teamwork, the games I’ve selected here use the fact that players are all sitting next to each other.
These are games where players take on different roles in order to complete unusual tasks. The fun is often as much about the conversations (and arguments) that happen in the room as what’s happening on the screen.
These games have an educational element to them, but also offer experiences that are good games in their own right. This isn't busywork to trick you into learning, but clever and innovative ways to encounter history, physics, engineering, maths, geography and language subjects without feeling like you are in school. They also teach softer, deeper skills like long term strategy, planning, balancing systems, emotional intelligence, compassion, team-work and self-care.
Some of these games are aimed at younger players to play on their own, but others (as indicated by their PEGI ratings) are better for teenagers or played together in a family. Find some games that pique your interest, read through the details and decide how your child might benefit from playing them.
While a significant portion of video games focus on combat and competition, these titles offer a less aggressive way to progress and win. None of these games enable or require the player to cause harm to another living thing -- even Mario's merciless campaign to stomp on every Goomba he meets bars him from this list. Or then there's catching and selling fish in Animal Crossing that rule that one out.
Many of them are aimed at children and families, but you'll be surprised how many explore deeper, more mature themes in their narratives, or require just as much skill as a fast-paced first-person shooter. This means there's plenty of offer for parents who might lack the reflexes (or interest) to survive a round of Fortnite.
We've focused on the games you might not expect to be played non-violently here, but you can find the full list at
Non-Violent Games Of the Day curated by James Batchelor.
Video games aren't high on the list of most people's spiritual spaces. However, many games offer experiences that invite you to explore buildings, worlds, cities and the countryside full of potential for spiritual reflection.
Games offer a unique way to encounter what is beyond us: other people, the world and possibly even the divine. They include themes of hope, loss and love. They invite us to reconsider how we see the outsider and the marginalised. They offer a chance for response and emotion to grow.
The games in this list have been the subject of a series of articles I have written about video games and faith. Firstly, from 2013-2015 for
ThirdWay magazine, and more recently for
Youth and Children's Work (YCW) magazine.
These are two publications for Christian audiences, that have invited me to shed light on what a range of video games might mean for those communities. I aim to make connections with faith, the bible and the experience of these video games. This is one way to interpret them which of course invites further and possibly counter interpretations from other perspectives.
YCW articles:
Firewatch |
Everything |
Bury Me My Love |
Abzu |
Wilmot's WarehouseThirdway Articles:
Proteus |
Joust |
Uncharted 3 |
Alan Wake |
This War of Mine |
Journey |
Limbo |
Spaceteam |
A Dark Room |
Altos Adventure |
A Year Walk |
Bioshock Infinite |
The Last of Us |
Disney Infinity |
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture |
That Dragon Cancer |
Spec Ops The Line |
Papo and Yo It can seem that all children do these days is stare at their screens and play video games. We worry about screen time and what the violence, addiction and gambling is doing to their brains.
However, along with screen time comes many other things we can celebrate. All kids do these days is talking to other. All kids do these days is learn the skills of rhetoric and debating. All kids do these days is develop their social confidence.
It sounds a little far fetched, but watching my kids play the new “hit” game Among Us I’ve realised these are exactly the sorts of things they are really developing when they are sat staring at their screens.
Here are some great examples where you need to talk, and talk intelligently and intelligibly, to do well in the game.
For those learning to read, or learning to read English as a second language, video games offer an opportunity play and interact with the meaning of words. Many games include written dialogue or subtitles of the spoken performances, but more interesting in this context are games that use words and sentences as the form of interaction.
There are games like A Dark Room, that offer nouns and verbs as the means of interacting with the world. There are games like Scribblenauts, that let the player enter words to conjure items to solve problems. There are games like Nanotale where you need to enter words to record items in your catalogue and advance the story.
Other games are also useful to those learning English as a second language as you easily can switch between different languages. Also you can play dialogue heavy games at your own pace as the action won’t advance without you.
Jocelyn Brewer coined the phrase
Digital Nutrition to introduce a way of thinking about technology that went beyond screen time worries, drug analogies and detoxes. Instead, she encourages us to think about the variety, context and patterns of digital consumption.
"Digital Nutrition is a guilt-free philosophy that guides you towards healthful technology habits and improving your digital literacy and wellbeing. Rather than digital detoxing and unplugging, Digital Nutrition is about intentional and intelligent use of devices and the conscious consumption of news, media and information."
I’ve worked with her on this list of games that provide particularly underserved aspects of our digital play diet. These are the vitamins of the gaming world. Essential to a healthy diet and easy to overlook if we just follow where video game advertising leads us.
Unlike the other lists on the site, it’s an eclectic collection of games. But this is for good reason. These are the games that supplement your digital diet with variety, fibre, vitamins and minerals. They are the “digital super-foods” as Jocelyn puts it.
Digital Nutrition is a brilliant antidote to the guilt, muddled advice and finger-pointing of screen time focus advice. Instead, we can consider what specific games have to offer our children and our family.
This leads to other questions about how, where and when we play. Grabbing a Pizza on the street isn’t the same as sitting down to share a slice around the meal table. Only eating Kale is as problematic disordered eating as eating too many sweets. The same is true with video games, so this list is here to offer a varied diet.
Video games are not often used in mature cultural spaces. We expect to find them in bedrooms, living rooms, the chip shop and the motorway services. But we don't expect to find them in arts festivals, church services or park gatherings.
Over the years Andy Robertson (@GeekDadGamer) has worked to cross this line, brining video games to be a central part of aspects of culture usually reserved for more weighty or serious things.
This has sometimes been to great out-side video game experiences, with games like The Dragon Cancer, Passage and Jesus Run, at the Greenbelt arts festival. Other times he has set-up unusual video games like Joust Mania, in local parks. Then he has worked with the Church of England to run acts of worship in Exeter Cathedral where a video game like Flower, Journey or Abzu are a central element.
Video Resources
Church services integrated with video game:
Video game at Greenbelt art festival:
Video game devotions and discussions:
