Exospace Invaders

My team had been producing for spherical video displays, globes, and interactive globe-based games since before our partnership with Sphere began in 2018. By 2023 the venue was real, and the open question was what interactivity there should actually look like. So we ran a series of R&D projects to find out.

One of those projects was ExoSpace Invaders: a large-scale, multi-user augmented reality game inspired by the classic Space Invaders. The art direction leaned deliberately retro, so the game read instantly to players and to anyone watching over their shoulders. Sphere's massive structure became the playfield itself.

I led the R&D effort with my team, from the initial game concept and art direction through the technical build and the brand-integration strategy that made it commercially viable.

Players joined from their own mobile devices, and the architecture supported countless simultaneous users at once. The hardest technical problem was achieving precise AR tracking of a structure the size of Sphere, and we solved it. We also wove brand placements directly into the gameplay, so monetization opportunities lived inside the experience instead of interrupting it.

ExoSpace Invaders was more than a game. It became our working framework for the future of large-scale AR entertainment at Sphere, blending nostalgia and new technology with a commercial model designed in from the start. Spectators enjoyed watching it almost as much as players enjoyed playing it.