The crew as a warm-up for game night?

The Crew: Travel together to the 9th planet is a cooperative mission-based trick-taking game for 2 - 5 players. It sounds complicated at first - but it's not. The small box contains only some markers, playing cards and a great game manual, which makes it really easy to get started. The most important rules are printed in short form on the edge of the manual, so that you can quickly find your way back into the game after a longer break. If you still want to start the game without reading the rules, you can download the free "explanatory app" to your smartphone. It couldn't be easier!

Unlike normal trick games, The Crew is not about winning the most tricks. The missions determine which tasks the team has to complete. It does not matter in which order the missions are played (but for the beginning it is recommended to start with the first mission). Even though the game is cooperative, players are not allowed to tell what cards they have in their hands. There is one exception. What that is you can read below.

Procedure

First, the 40 large playing cards are distributed among the participants and a mission is chosen. According to the mission, the orders are revealed. The player with the rocket of 4 is the commander and is the first to choose a mission. Then the remaining missions are chosen clockwise by the players until all missions are assigned.

The commander opens the game. As usual, one color must be served. If you cannot serve, you must discard a card of a different color, or play a rocket card (trump). Once per round you have the possibility to communicate via a radio tile. You can provide the following information to your fellow players:

• Tile on top of the card = card is the highest of this color
• Tile in the middle of the card = card is the only one of this color
• Tile at the bottom of the card = card is the lowest of this color

End of game

A round is won when all the missions in the mission have been completed. There are 50 missions in total, which can be played in any order.

Our opinion

The Crew as a warm-up for the game night? You can do it, if you manage to put the cards aside after the first successful mission. The game impresses with a very simple and easy to learn mechanism. At the same time, the randomness of the drawn cards, the limited communication and the increasingly difficult missions offer an enormous depth of play. An all-around great game that will definitely be on the table more often. The only downer is that after 7.5 hours, the cards resemble a ten-year-old UNO game.