Every year at about this time, Google does a cryptic teaser to announce the dates for its I/O developer conference, usually happening in the late spring. Last year, Till Kottmann, one of the developers behind the popular Lawnchair Launcher, cracked the puzzle in record time by circumventing it entirely. This year Google is tweaking the formula a bit, turning the teaser into a forced collaborative effort inside a highly technical puzzle/game.

The intergalactic satellite network powering this signal board is down. Only by working collectively will we restore the signal to reveal a special message for all the galaxy to see. Can we count on you?

The teaser is a "mission" that takes you into a partially command-driven game that sounds like we all have to work together to progress. It's called "A Collaboration of the Cosmos," and at the time of writing, it shows a "Signal Strength" of 0.12% as a progress bar, apparently averaging that result from progress gained across six different puzzles inside the game, based on the additional circular indicators and icons.

Gameplay revolves around using information associated with a constellation of satellites to determine other details about them, name the group, and assign them all frequencies, all handled via text input. Puzzle fiends, cryptographically interested developers, and fans of things like the MIT Mystery Hunt will probably be right at home using the named satellite clues to guess answers.

You can check it out for yourself over at events.google.com/io/mission/, and together we'll unlock the details for this year's upcoming Google I/O developer conference.