Description
Astronauts wanted! The scientific community is abuzz over signs of a mysterious planet located at the edge of our solar system. But despite all of their efforts, so far they have been unable to provide substantial evidence of its existence. Join this exciting space adventure to find out if the theories are just science fiction or if you will discover Planet Nine. In this cooperative trick-taking card game, you need to complete 50 different missions as you travel across the solar system. But you will only succeed if you can work together as a team. To master the challenges and achieve your mission, communication will be essential — but in space, things can be more challenging than expected. It’s not just who wins the hand but also how the hand is won that makes all the difference.
From the manufacturer
About KOSMOS Games
KOSMOS games build social skills, stimulate logical and strategic thinking, promote visual-spatial and math skills, cultivate physical coordination and manual dexterity, encourage family time, and inspire fair-mindedness, confidence, and honorable attitudes. German engineered and beautifully made, these games become enduring family favorites and game night classics. For all these reasons, Kosmos games have earned worldwide acclaim.
The Crew
The Quest for Planet Nine
Astronauts wanted! Scientists say there is a mysterious ninth planet located at the edge of our solar system. Join this exciting space adventure to find out if the theories are true.
The Crew spans 50 missions that tell a thrilling story as you travel across the solar system. These missions can be played many times and take about 5-10 mins each.
To achieve your mission, teamwork and communication will be essential — but in space, things can be more challenging than expected.
- Ages 10 and up
- For 3 to 5 players
- Play Time: 20 minutes
About the Designer
Thomas Sing is an economist who lives in the town of Constance on Lake Constance. With his friends he bought a corner store which has given him time for his hobbies, which include mathematics, Miss Lupun, and inventing games.
His first game for KOSMOS, The Crew, has brought together the popular worlds of trick-taking games and cooperative games in a fascinating and entirely original way.
What’s in the box?
- 40 Large cards
- 5 Reminder cards
- 36 Small cards
- 1 Commander token
- 10 Task tokens
- 5 Radio Communication tokens
- 1 Distress signal token
- Rulebook, logbook
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Trick-takingA modern twist on the popular card game genre of trick-taking. Players of euchre, hearts, spades, or bridge will be familiar with the style of game, but The Crew offers a fresh new way to play. Instead of playing against each other for points, The Crew is a cooperative game, where players win or lose together. |
Limited CommunicationBrilliantly, The Crew does not allow players to talk to each other, but players can communicate. Once per mission, each player can show the other players one card from their hand. But choose the card you show the other players wisely! It’s the only card you’ll be able to share during that mission. |
Game AttributesThe Crew is a highly cooperative game where the whole team needs to work together in order to be successful. The Crew is also very strategic. Teams will get better at this game the more they play. |
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Full-color Manual and LogbookLearning how to play The Crew is easy with the 22-page manual. The logbook outlines the 50 missions you can take with your team. Along with a space to record your missions. |
Two-player variantThe Crew can easily be played with different numbers of players (from 3 – 5). If you want to play with 2 players, there is a unique setup that will provide players with a whole new experience. |
Color Blind FriendlyThe colors of the cards are important to this game. But don’t worry if you or your friend are color blind because each color also has a unique symbol that is printed on the cards. |
KOSMOS Helper AppIf you don’t feel like reading the manual, you can also learn how to play The Crew on the KOSMOS Helper App which uses animation, text, and audio. You can download the Helper App on either iOS or Android. |
Important information
Safety Information
WARNING. Not suitable for children under 3 years. Choking hazard — small parts may be swallowed or inhaled.
Monkey Pox –
OVERVIEW: The Crew is a trick taking game for 2-5 players, similar to Euchre, Hearts, and Spades. The innovative aspect is that all of the players are working cooperatively towards a common goal that becomes progressively more difficult with each success. This cooperative environment makes the game easy to teach as it encourages players to help each other succeed in completing each mission. The missions generally involve getting specific players to win tricks involving specific cards. The fifty included levels ramp up in difficulty as multiple missions and mission order restrictions are added to increase the complexity of each round.COMMUNICATION: In most trick taking games, there are heavy restrictions on communicating undisclosed information from your hand of cards, commonly known as ‘table talk’. The Crew adds a unique element of communication to the players, affording them advantages if used properly. This allows players to reveal one of their cards, that is not trump or the subject of current missions, and indicate with a token weather it is the highest card in it’s suit, the lowest card in it’s suit, or it is the only card in it’s suit. This information can be quite invaluable and necessary to the success of any given mission, creating a clever dynamic for players to exploit.SCALABILITY: The Crew is enjoyable at every player count, but becomes much more difficult as it scales up. As most missions involve specific players winning specific tricks, more players increases the likelihood of missions failing. Therefore the chances of getting through all fifty missions decreases. However the joy in this game is in the journey, not the destination, and sometimes coordinating five people to unify as one group can be much more rewarding than with two.PROS: The Crew is incredibly accessible to a large variety of players as it is easy to teach as well as learn. The puzzle solving aspect makes this game more engaging than other trick taking games in the genre, while the cooperative nature of the game emotionally invests players in the success of the everyone involved as a united team, or in this case a crew. The Crew is quick to set up and get started, and can be ended quickly by marking your place in the provided chart within the rule book.The higher levels are complex enough to challenge the most skilled players, and home brewed missions are easy to create.CONS: The theme of the Crew is irrelevant to actual game play, and could have easily been replaced by any conceivable genre. The cards themselves are standard stock, but the printing on them are less than ideal for color blind players or those with weaker eyesight. The featured art on each card is irrelevant to the game and lackluster at best. It is a missed opportunity not to use this space to make the important information the card (the suit and number) much more identifiable. The cards could be better, but they could also be modified or improved easily enough. I don’t personally think that this is a deal breaker considering the price point and value of the product.CONCLUSION: The Crew offers one of the most accessible and innovative gaming experiences I have ever enjoyed. Practically anyone can pick up on the rules fast, and the fact that you are asking them to help you win, as opposed to challenging them to defeat you, brings enthusiastic players to your table. Once they taste the sweet success of completing each mission as a team, the drive to progress forward and relive that experience pushes them to continually deal the next hand. It is incredibly portable, with minimal set up, and the ability to quickly end the game and bookmark your place for the next session. It is a fantastic filler game, but is also substantial enough to continue long into the night.
Haon the Great –
Bottom line up front: an easy to learn, easy to teach, co-op version of Spades that doesn’t let one person dominate the table.If you sat me down and said “we made a thematic Hearts co-op variant where you don’t get to table talk,” I would would have laughed you out the door. Utter nonsense.My wife and I are about halfway through Crew’s 50 missions. I’m not laughing anymore. I’m in awe. This is one of the most enjoyable games in existence.The basic gameplay is as old as Hearts or Spades. You play a card. The other players follow suit. High card in suit wins. Trump cards beat all.Instead of individualistic “winner take all” premise of Spades, however, Crew asks all the players to complete communal tasks by winning tricks in different ways. It’s a co-op card game. Most of the time, these involve Player X winning the trick containing Card N in a certain order, but unique variations exist (for example: win a trick with a non-trump “1” card). Complete the tasks, and the group wins the game!And then Crew tells you that you the group can’t table talk outside of:- one card reveal- per game- per player.Boom.So many good things to say about this rule.- It forces you to use your logic, not the group’s.- It prevents the most charismatic or strategic or obnoxious person from dominating the game, a serious problem in all co-op games.- It adds gobs of tension. Why did they play that card? Are they trying to tell me something?- It forces you outside the box.- It drives your mom batty.This rule should become the standard for EVERY co-op game, bar none.To cap it all off, Crew comes with a campaign of 50 game scenarios, any of which you can simply pick up and play at any time. Tons of variety.Crew will have a place on my shelf in perpetuity. A brilliant, reasonably light game that can find its way to any table. Play it with your game group, play it with your parents, play it with your kids (once they figure out what the word “silence” actually means).—————————————————————–[2-Player review]Okay, so then you tell me that Crew has a 2P variant where one player controls a robot hand. I laugh you out the door again, more cautiously this time.Then the variant works, albeit differently than 3-5 player Crew. I’m in awe again.In 2P Crew, the robot is dealt 7 cards face down, then 7 cards face up, each covering on face down card. This means that you have 7 cards which at the beginning of the game are entirely unknown. The game turns into a even more of a puzzle. To explain:- Both players can, and should, play based on the face up cards. Some information is always known.- You need to dig for the face down cards. Some information is always hidden.- You have to be exceptionally cautious to avoid completing tasks out of turn. Digging for face down cards involves taking cards – some of which you cannot, or should not, be taking.Because of the puzzle-heavy focus, I don’t recommend the 2P variant for everyone. You need to enjoy co-op games, card games, and logic puzzles, and you need to be okay with losing. Sometimes, there is literally no way to win. For my wife and I, we enjoy the struggle to make that determination. Others may not. Give this one some thought before you add it to your 2 player collection.
Florian –
This game is extremely simple in its rules. Nonetheless it requires a bit of strategic thinking, deducing and cooperationIt does a really good job through the missions to make the players pick up on strategies and ramp up difficiltiesThe missions are also extremely fast and the game is fast to set up.Overall this is simply the best game in its genre and both beginners and seasoned tabletop player will enjoy
Poiuytrew.q –
2024 Updated ReviewI think I will always have fond memories of The Crew -Quest for Planet Nine. This was the game that we played on weeknights after a long day at school/work which was still at home, because it was the Pandemic of 2020.We had not played the game much after completing all the missions in the book, but I did introduce the game to my friend and cousin and we started playing through the campaign again. It was actually more difficult than expected to relearn the distress mechanic, but the concept of trick-taking and completing the missions came back, like revisiting your old haunts – familiar and cozy, but different at the same time.Playing with 4 players was also more different than playing with 3 players. Also, there was a whole new meta that had to be established – the two new players did not understand our previously understood silent language via card play.But what is still great is that it is a fun strategic game that we can play past 11pm on a Friday night after a long game of King’s Dilemma, and still have fun even though our eyes and bodies want to go to bed. Just one more mission, we can do it!The other players enjoyed the underwater theme more. I still prefer the space theme. What I ended up doing was using both decks – while one player dealt out one deck, I shuffled the next deck ready for the next game.The Crew is still fantastic to play even after the “newness” has worn away. It’s still affordable and if you enjoy co-operative games, card games, and trick-taking, you will get a lot of value and plays out of this one purchase.2020 ReviewWe started playing this game what seems like so long ago, but it was a little under a month ago. I think we had more fun at first, because it was just so ridiculous what we were doing. Two of us had never played trick taking games so it was easier for us to learn because someone could help give advice and guidance on how to play a trick taking game.It’s definitely more fun if you create a character for yourself that is part of this “crew”. For example, my code name is Raven and I always say, “They need a woman to finish the job” or sometimes I take on the role of the power-hungry, maniac commander with crazy ideas and purposefully make missions harder to accomplish. Another player speaks with a fake Russian accent the entire game and occassionally calls the rest of us crazy Americans…usually when we play crazy cards. We aren’t hard core gamers, but we have played Pandemic Legacy and Legacy of Dragonholt where you create your character with a back story…and I think that helps a lot to make the game have more flavor.We’re around mission 30 and at this point I do feel like we are battle-hardened crew now. The game is definitely harder now and maybe works as a team building exercise, because you have to encourage, or be humble and accept blame, and try to not assign blame for failed missions. We still haven’t used the token asking for help yet.In summary, I would recommend this game if you want something short you can play after a long work day. I hate paying full price for something, but I think this game was worth the MSRP for the fun and amount of game we got out of it so far. I also think it’s best if you have the same people doing the missions. The game has some story, but it helps a lot if the players put in their own personal touches to make the game come alive.
artwolf –
This is a great cooperative game. Quick play,, with lots of changeups between hands to keep it interesting. In fact, this is a reorder, since we play so much the cards were getting worn. Lots of fun and great replayability. We have given this game as a gift to friends, also. My wife and I play nearly every meal while we eat. It’s that fun and interesting.UPDATE: We play this game a lot (nearly every day), and really enjoy it. HOWEVER, I have to adjust this rating because the actual quality of the cards is not very good. While they look nice when new, they are just pasteboard with no coating, so they wear out and bend easily. We have actually taken a set of playing cards and used markers to color them, so we could keep using the game. The original cards wore out so quickly!NOTE TO KOSMOS: If you are reading this, get a better card supplier! If you are trying to save yourself some money by going cheap, well, it’s hurting you. Great game, lousy card quality.
RiverSong –
I am new to the world of trick-taking card games, but I’m quickly getting hooked! I tried this game when I my coworker introduced me to it and loved it so much that I had to buy it for myself. It’s quickly becoming a favorite amongst my friends and family. The cooperative aspect of this game is so challenging, but so rewarding when we get it right and win the round. It’s taking us a bit of time to make through all the challenges, but I like that there are so many to do. I highly recommend this game if you are up for a challenge!
McKennan Dalton –
The Crew is basically a cooperative trick-taking card game. Each round is a “mission” with an objective that usually entails winning tricks in a certain order. Even though this game is cooperative and I am very competitive, I love it and can’t play enough!I’ve been playing this game for a few weeks with my friends and still haven’t gotten through half of the missions.
Todd D. –
Lots of different ways to play, keeps it interesting and easy for beginners but challenging for experts as well. Everyone in the family enjoyed it. Great for a family game night.
Halljp –
It is hard to find a good cooperative game and this is a great one.
Brooke –
Great for friends and families that are super competitive. You are all working together on the same team to beat challenges. If you know how to play Spades or Rook, this will be super easy to learn, but I have also taught non-gamer friends, and they love it, too. Nobodies feelings get super hurt if you lose a round, but when you win everybody else wins!