What Spanda is
Someone thought of you. Can you guess who?
Ever thought about a friend just before they sent you a message? Spanda takes that familiar feeling and turns it into a private guessing game.
Spanda is a free guessing game for you and up to four close friends. Think of a friend, open Spanda, tap their name and send a mystery poke. They lock one guess at who sent it before the reveal. Your score sits next to what random picking would get. Spanda 1.0 is available on the App Store for iPhone and also works in your browser.
Spanda is free: organise one circle of up to five people and join your friends' circles. A Host upgrade for bigger circles and more of them is coming to the iPhone app. Friends you invite will always play free.
The word
Why "Spanda"
Spanda is a Sanskrit word often translated as a subtle pulse, vibration, throb, or movement of life.
We chose the name because the app is about tiny felt signals. Not grand claims. Not thunderbolts. The small pulse before the phone lights up. The name that arrives before the notification. The sense that someone is near in attention before they appear on the screen.
Spanda gives that feeling a place in a game. You do not need to believe in anything to play, guess and enjoy a little attention from your friends.
The premise
A familiar feeling, made into a game
Someone comes to mind, and moments later you hear from them. That coincidence can feel special. It is the inspiration for Spanda, not something the game can explain.
Telephone-telepathy stories and research by Rupert Sheldrake and Pamela Smart helped inspire the game. Spanda is independent, with no endorsement or partnership.
Spanda’s pokes work differently from experiments that choose a caller at random: the sender chooses whom to poke. Knowing your friends can help you guess.
Telepathy has not been established scientifically. Spanda does not claim it is real or test whether it exists.
How a round works
One poke, one guess, one reveal
- 01 · THE POKE
Someone in your circle sends you a mystery poke. You are not told who: the sender is sealed before you guess. - 02 · THE GUESS
You see your circle's faces, everyone but you. Pick who you think sent it. Your guess locks before anything is revealed. - 03 · THE REVEAL
Right or wrong, your guess counts. You can choose whether to see who sent the poke after a miss. In the web app, after a correct guess, the two friends can choose to talk in a voice call.
To start a round, think of a friend, open Spanda and tap their name. Spanda may send a gentle reminder to think of a friend. A reminder never starts a round: you choose a friend and tap their name to send a poke.
In a full circle of five, random picking would get one in four guesses right (25%). Spanda works out the comparison for each round from who could have sent the poke. It is a game score, not evidence of telepathy.
How the seal works
Sealed answers. Locked guesses.
The sender is sealed with a hash commitment before the guess. Changing the sealed answer would make it fail to match the published fingerprint. Your guess locks before the reveal. If you choose to hide the sender after a miss, that identity and the secret that opens the seal stay hidden.
What your dashboard shows
Your score next to random picking
Your score shows right guesses next to what picking at random would get over the same rounds. The comparison uses the possible senders in each round. It is a game score, not evidence of anything.
A high score may reflect knowing who usually reaches out, shared routines or lucky guesses. It does not prove telepathy.
The free game
One free circle of up to five
Spanda is free: organise one circle of up to five people and join your friends' circles. A Host upgrade for bigger circles and more of them is coming to the iPhone app. Friends you invite will always play free.