In The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine, players play a co-op trick-taking game to achieve certain goals.
Don’t let the team down!
Players set out as astronauts on an uncertain space adventure. What about the rumours about the unknown planet about?
The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine Game Play
I played the online version so all images are from that version, but you could probably tell!
So this is basically a standard trick-taking game so I’m going to briefly cover that before moving on to the interesting stuff.
There is a deck of cards numbered 1-9 in 4 colours and 1-4 in black rocket cards. These are shuffled and dealt evenly to each player.
The player with the number 4 rocket goes first (They are the Commander), playing any card. Everyone then plays a card of the same colour if able, if not they can play any card.
The player with the highest card of the lead colour suit takes all the cards and starts the next trick. Rockets are wild and the highest-played rocket will always win a trick.
Missions & Tasks
A full… campaign? I guess? Is made up of 50 missions that get progressively harder as you go. Each of these is made up of 1 or more tasks and comes with a bit of a story.
A task is basically a card and a token in the physical game, they were set up for us online. In turn,order starting with the commander, players draft tasks until they are all gone.
In mission one, a player is given 1 card as a task and they must win that card in a trick to complete it. Fail a single task and you just restart the mission and try again.
Eventually, multiple players get a task they all must win. Later, the tasks are numbered and they must be completed in that order. Then some tasks are given a priority order and they must be won in that order while other tasks in that mission can be completed at any time.
For something different, in one mission the commander had to pick a player to not win a single trick with only a piece of communication unique to that mission to go on. Speaking of which…
Communication
Players can’t talk about their hands even when taking on tasks. But, they can use the radio to give a hint as to what they have once per mission.
The player puts a card from their hand face up with a token on it. If the token is at the top of the card they’re saying this is the highest card of that suit they have, the bottom is the lowest. If they put it in the middle they’re saying it’s the ONLY card of that suit they have.
These are the only positions it can be placed and it MUST be true.
In some missions, there will be radio interference where a card can be placed but the token is not…
Distress Signal
Once per mission, before the first trick is played or any cards have been communicated the players can activate a distress signal.
For this, players, without further communication, pass a non-rocket card to the player on their left or right. Players will choose which direction before everyone passes.
Game End
Complete level 50 and you win I guess? This could take you 100+ games but what an achievement.
Theme
So you can’t talk… so communication is stopped which does make it feel like you’re stuck in space working together but alone… But you have radios in space right? Occasionally there is radio interference but apart from that, you should be able to communicate effectively. Or did this space mission go ahead with terrible equipment?
Weird, but it doesn’t matter. The theme isn’t part of the game, you know the tasks and you play coloured numbers to achieve them.
Setup
Playing the digital version setup was very simple 🙂 But it’s just mostly a case of shuffling and dealing.
Artwork
Again it’s space stuff with space pictures. It’s merely “ok”. I’ll always vote for uniquely abstract or full-on cartoony stuff.
Ease of Teaching & Accessibility
The best thing about trick-taking games is most people have played one and understand the basics of the game before even starting. Even if they haven’t it’s not that difficult. What to do if you can’t follow suit and the rocket cards are the only niggles to teaching.
The missions ramping up in difficulty means you can start at mission one and progress making this very accessible, even with the restricted communication.
The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine Summary
My fave trick-taking hobby game is Chronicle and in that, you have History cards which are basically Missions, but it’s not co-op. I also really like ebbes which is a more traditional trick-taking game.
The Crew is VERY good and I can see why it won all of the awards. I had just recorded my Top 50 Board Games of All Time when I played it but it may make the list next year.
But will it though… It’s the same game, right? It’s an infinitely long game of hoping the cards fall correctly and hoping everyone is paying attention.
There was a point in our game when I didn’t play a yellow 4 when I needed to which means the player that needed it didn’t get it and we lost. My fault.
But that’s all it is… Also, if you take the game to different groups are you not just playing the first few missions over and over? You need a regular group to make this game what it should be.
So while it’s a very good game, I played it online for free for an hour or so and now I feel I don’t need to buy it. It’s off the wishlist.
Jesta ThaRogue