Ready to join The Crew?

We’ve all been pretty disappointed since Pluto was declassified as a planet in our solar system.

Not that we had any actual travel plans of getting there some day. But when the International Astronomical Union decided to withdraw Pluto’s status as our solar system’s 9th planet in 2006, it caused quite the stir.

Well, all that’s behind us now. We must look to the future!

And your future may include becoming part of the crew to rediscover the 9th planet in The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine by Kosmos!

Before we get any further, we’ll give this disclaimer: While the theme of hunting for planet nine sounds really cool, in reality, the tie to the theme in the game is pretty thin.

But that’s not a problem for us, because the game is a ton of fun!

The Crew is a cooperative, trick-taking card game with a lot of variety. And it’s already making a strong case for becoming one of our most-played games for 2020.

How to play The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine

In The Crew, players work together to accomplish a series of missions by completing specific “tasks” each game.

The Logbook includes 50 missions for players to attempt — getting progressively harder as you play.

While The Crew is like many trick-taking games, it stands out uniquely beyond any others we’ve played because it’s cooperative!

For those unfamiliar with the term “trick-taking”, we’ll briefly explain the term. It’s a mechanic in games where all players play a card from their hand to the table and then one player claims the cards played. This is referred to as a “trick”. Games such as Hearts, Spades, Rook, Euchre, or Pinochle are trick-taking games.

Normally in trick-taking games, players compete with one another for points based on the tricks and cards they take in a round.

But in The Crew, the players work together to ensure the specific Tasks for each mission are completed successfully by the group. In each mission, these Tasks consist of how the various tricks must be won.

To begin, the entire deck of cards is dealt out to all players. The cards consist of 4 colored suits (blue, green, pink, and yellow) and 1 black suit. The colored cards are numbered 1 through 9 and the black cards are 1 through 4.

Whichever player has the Black 4 becomes the Commander and will start the first trick.

The Commander also sets out the Tasks as listed with each unique mission. For example, in mission 2, the Commander draws 2 Task cards from the Task deck. These are smaller cards that match the colored cards.

The Commander is first to choose one of the Task cards and then players, in order, also choose one until they’re all taken.

In order to successfully complete a mission, the players with Task cards must win tricks that include that designated card.

For example, if I have the Blue 5 Task card, I must win a trick that has the Blue 5 in it.

Once Tasks are distributed, the Commander plays a card from their hand to begin the first trick. The color of this card will set the suit for the trick. The player on the left goes next and if they have a card in their hand of that same colored suit, they must play it. If they don’t have a matching color, they can play any card of their choice.

The player who plays the highest number in that trick’s color, wins the trick and claims the cards. The exception is that the black cards are the trump suit and will win the trick regardless of the set color. But you can still only play a black card if you don’t have a card of the matching color.

The catch is that players can’t talk about what cards they have in their hands!

Once per mission, players can “communicate” with one of their cards.

To do so, before the start of a trick, they place one of their cards face up in front of them and place their Communication token on it. Placing the token at the top of the card communicates, “this is the highest number card I have in this color”. Placing the token at the bottom communicates, “this is the lowest number card I have in this color.” Placing the token in the middle communicates, “this is the only card I have in this color.”

As soon as all Tasks are won in tricks correctly, the mission succeeds!

If any of the Tasks are not correctly completed, the mission fails and the players attempt the same mission again.

In addition, some missions require the Tasks be completed in certain orders. In some missions, there are other restrictions — like choosing one player to not win a single trick, or not winning a single trick with a 9, and things like that.

The Logbook provides places for crew to record how many attempts they make at a mission to successfully complete it.

Although there are 50 missions in the logbook to play, players can play as many or as few as they’d like. And while they increase in difficulty, players can also choose to attempt whichever mission they’d like and in whichever order.

Can the whole family enjoy The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine?

The Crew is a terrific family card game!

While the rules are simple on how to win a trick, the various Tasks to complete missions will keep you thinking. We’re often left scratching our heads on how we’re going to be able to complete a task.

But we can only scratch our heads, because we can’t discuss the cards in our hands!

As Task cards are being claimed, you’ll wish you could discuss which cards you have in hand and which Tasks you’re best equipped to win. But you can’t!

Instead, you’re sometimes left taking Task cards that you have no idea how you’re going to win them.

For example, how can you claim a yellow 7 when you don’t have any high cards, let along a high yellow card? You’ll have to win it by hoping it gets played in a trick that you’ll win with a low number in a different color.

You’ll find yourselves trying to read people’s minds when playing your cards. And you’ll celebrate when you all pull it off!

Last year, one of our most-played family games was Skull King. We burned through the scoresheet pad pretty soon because we played it so much. So we thought we were pretty good at managing tricks we wanted and didn’t want to win.

But as soon as we started playing The Crew, we knew we were in for a new treat!

It was funny when we played the first mission and immediately claimed the Task card for a successful mission. One trick and we were done.

So we confidently dove into mission 2 — only to be thwarted right away. Then again! It took us 3 attempts to successfully complete only the second mission!

We quickly discovered there’s a lot more to the game than we originally thought.

And we’re hooked!

We haven’t yet attempted all the missions, but we’re really excited to discover and take on the unique challenges of each mission!

How does The Crew score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

I bet you can guess the answer to this one easily enough…

It’s a huge hit and we’re going to play it a ton!

So yes, it scores very high on our “let’s play again” game meter.

And even after we successfully complete the 50 missions with our current crew, we’ll readily dive into it again. And we won’t feel restricted to do them in order. Most likely we’ll go back to the missions that gave us the biggest challenge the first time through.

It’s also a game that plays out very differently depending on the number of players. Playing with a full 5-players is a tricky challenge. But that also doesn’t mean playing with just 3-players is a breeze either.

It’s fun all around.

We highly recommend picking up a copy of The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine for your own crew!

We’d like to thank Kosmos for a review copy of The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine.