What unique setting would you most like to explore? Where would you travel to and where would your exploration take you? Would it be deep under the sea? Maybe out in the lush nature of a huge jungle? Or what about space-the final frontier?
The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine is published by Kosmos games and plays 3-5 players total. The average game time is 20 mins for each mission. The game is designed by Thomas Sing.
Gameplay
In The Crew, you will play a cooperative adventure that is mission based. The game is a trick-taking focused mechanic that will build on itself round to round. As a co-op you either win together, or you lose together to try and complete the missions and win the game.
There are 50 different missions available for you to play as you complete the game and its story. You do not have to play them all at once and you probably won’t but you can play numerous at a time and tie them together.
The gameplay is simple. There are five card suits and each of the four colors pink, blue, green and yellow have numbered cards 1-9 while the fifth suit is rockets with smaller numbers 1-4. When starting a trick, the first person that plays a card leads the trump and then all players play a card. Highest of the followed suit wins unless a rocket is played and it wins.
You play the game silently, that is you do not share the information about the cards in your hand. You cannot show or say what is in your hand, but you may use a radio communication token once per mission to communicate if a certain revealed is the highest, lowest or only one of that type of color card.
Each mission can bring different challenges, but mainly you will get tasks that require you to complete based on which player picked them up. Tasks are completed when a player obtains the card on the task card winning a trick.
Impressions
The Crew brings one of the more unique combinations of game mechanics I have played in a while. Trick-taking is a fun style of gameplay and one that I personally am not always a huge fan of but I know there are quite a few people who are. Some versions of trick-taking like Skull King from Grandpa Beck’s Games really capture my interest, primarily because of the extra aspects it brings. That being said The Crew makes Trick-taking fun in a way I had not seen before-the addition of missions that must be accomplished each round is unique and really makes this game shine. The limited to no communication between players ramps up the intensity as you play the hands, waiting to see if you can make your trick that you need and the ones that your teammates need as well. Co-op Trick-taking is something I never thought I would see in a game-but yet here we are. The best part is that they make it seem like a game I wanted to play but never knew I did.
The missions in the rulebook are interesting-if you have players who enjoy a campaign-style approach to gaming, this will be perfect for them. However if the theme and storytelling of the game isn’t your cup of tea, it is easy to just grab any format and go with playing it through as a mission in itself. I liked the storytelling and watching how it ramped up in difficulty-it really challenged us as a team to get the goals met when and where we needed to or to avoid the complications or rules that the mission set forth.
I enjoyed the gameplay that The Crew brings to the table. If you want to play a quick hand or two, this game is perfect for a short game big on fun. If you are more interested in the campaign style format, it lends itself easily to that as well. I love the overall smooth flow of gameplay after you get through the first few learning games. The Crew is a card game bringing some fresh innovation to the genre-don’t miss out on your chance to “explore” this one sometime!
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