The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine is a cooperative trick-taking game that offers a unique gameplay experience. Players work together to complete missions and achieve their goal of finding Planet Nine.

The game is easy to learn, making it accessible to players of all skill levels. The rules are straightforward, and the game can be played incrementally.

The game offers a high level of replayability due to the 50 missions, and the game can be played with different player counts.

Despite its simple rules, The Crew offers a high level of strategic depth. Players must work together to plan their moves and communicate effectively to complete their missions.

The game is compact and easy to transport, making it a great option for game nights, trips, or gatherings with friends and family.

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine has won several awards, including the prestigious Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2020, making it a highly regarded game in the board game community.

The game relies moderately on luck, as players must rely on the cards they are dealt to complete their missions. This can be frustrating for players who prefer games with more strategic depth.

The game requires a minimum of three players to get the best experience. Although, you can play The Crew with 2 players. It is not recommended.

The game is recommended for ages 10 and up, which may not be suitable for younger players or families with younger children.

As suggested by the game designer, you can discuss your strategy before starting the game with your friends as verbal communication about the cards in hand is not encouraged after the game starts. This can help you win more missions.

You should know the task details of all players to avoid accidentally winning the trick with a card other players need. This will fail the mission.

In Crew, each suit has 9 cards. Keeping in mind the cards that are still in play will help you win most of the tricks. With practice, this should become easier. This is the single most essential skill to win trick-taking games.

Communication tokens allow you to give hints to your teammates about the cards in your hand. Use them strategically to help yourself and your teammates.

If you can't win a mission no matter what, you can use distress signals to make it a little easy. Distress signal lets players pass one card to the player next to them. However, you can win any mission without distress signals according to the game designer.

In advanced strategies, let's discuss in detail how to win a trick regardless of the hand you are dealt.

Let's say your task is winning a trick with red 7 and you only have red 3. It can be tricky to complete this task. But, there are some ways to get this done. If the situation permits, use the communication token on the red 3 to signal other players about the situation.

Using the rocket card - Discard all the red you have and keep the rocket card ready to use when red 7 is played.

Using your long suit - If you have more than the average number of cards in a suit, it is called a long suit. Try to discard all the cards of that suit after winning a trick. At one point all players will run out of cards of that suit and play the red 7 you need. You also have to be mindful of the tasks of other players with the same suit.

Let's say you have pink 1 and your task is to take pink 1, if you have a long pink suit, play pink until all pinks are out of the game.

Now, you can play your 1 to win the trick. You can also use the long suit strategy above. But, in this case, you should also aim to exhaust all the pink cards of other players, so that you can play your pink 1 after winning a random trick.

If you hold high cards of a suit which is not useful to you, discard them when you get a chance to make it easy for other players. They may want to use the high card of the suit they don't need to win a trick they want. Your high cards can hamper their plans.

The missions in The Crew are designed to be played in a specific order, with each mission building on the skills and strategies learned in the previous missions. Try to play the missions in order to try to use what you've learned in previous missions to your advantage.

The Crew is a game that requires players to be flexible and adapt to changing circumstances. Be prepared to change your plans if necessary and work with your team to come up with new strategies on the fly.