Tabletop Game Review: The Crew: The Quest For Planet Nine

The Crew: The Quest For Planet Nine

KOSMOS

2-5 Players

The Crew: The Quest For Planet Nine is a trick-taking cooperative game in which players act as astronauts attempting to find the 9th planet in our solar system. Players will need to work through 50 missions in which every player has a role to fulfill in order to help the team progress.

In The Crew, players are dealt hands and need to play their cards in an effort to satisfy a given puzzle. It plays a lot like other trick-taking games in which players will want to follow trump suits, except that its one of the few games that use the mechanism for cooperative play. Players will have limited knowledge as they work to win their assigned tricks and complete the mission. Players are not allowed to share the knowledge of what is in their hands and can only communicate when they use radio communication tokens. The tokens come with set rules on how players are allowed to present information to their teammates but do well at letting players know what suits or colors are present in a given hand.

The missions range from simple to difficult, with tons of variation in between. Most of the missions come down to simply getting specific players to win specific tricks. Luck plays a significant role too depending on the hand that is dealt with the players. Usually, a task is as simple as winning a round with a certain suit. If the player needs to win a blue suit, they can simply lead with blue with the highest number possible (9). If the player doesn’t have that they will need to find a way to win with a lower number. The communication tokens can help with that. Players can reveal if the card they have in their hand is the highest, lowest, or only card of a suit. This will guide other players in the right direction and help them succeed with their tasks.

Playtime can vary from anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes depending on luck and the tasks at hand. Players will likely fail missions multiple times. This can be due to luck or lack of communication. Regardless, it’s easy to jump in and play for a little bit or play for an extended session to knock out most of the game’s 50 missions.

The gameplay can be a bit confusing in the beginning, but after a mission or two players will have a good grasp on how to handle their missions. Communicating is difficult to master, with players needing to know just when to use their communication tokens. Despite being a trick-taking game, there isn’t as much luck as one would think. Luck can cause players to quickly complete a mission, but it will rarely cause players to lose. Instead, a good understanding of what cards need to be played, and then a certain level of trust is needed to succeed. Players get to choose their tasks at the beginning of a mission, which can be a form of indirect communication. Trusting that they took a task because they can handle it is a key part of player success.

The space theme is fully embraced, with missions that come with a nice little story. Families will be able to enjoy the story as they train to be astronauts together. The cards are simple but feature neat space designs that bring the whole theme together. There aren’t too many components aside from the cards and tokens, so there aren’t any massive pieces to bring the theme together. This is a nice compact trick-taking game that also makes clever use of its theme. Even those who don’t care for the space aesthetic will still be able to appreciate The Crew‘s solid gameplay.

While it doesn’t have any flashy mechanics, The Crew: The Quest For Planet Nine plays well with a great set of rules. Fans of trick-taking games that want to add a bit of cooperation to the equation will certainly enjoy taking on the game’s many missions.