Flash Review — The Crew

 

Player count: 2 to 5

Works well with just 2: No (it involes a dummy hand, not fun)

Age: 10+ 

Playtime: 20 min (but not really—see below)

Everyone's played trick-taking games before: first player lays a card on the table, and each opponent must follow suit if at all possible. Highest card of the suit led takes the trick and starts the next one.

But have you ever tried a cooperative trick-taking game?

In The Crew, each space mission takes the form of a task (or a series of tasks) to be accomplished within a round lf play. One player must win the trick containing the blue 6; the tricks containing the yellow 2 and the red 7 must be won in that order; one player can't win tricks at all; or one trick must be won with the play of a 1 (the lowest card in the deck); and so on.

Players can only share information through the placement of a communications token, which indicates whether the card they're showing is their highest, lowest, or only card in that color.

The Crew is pure genius, and it feels so natural once you start playing it that it boggles the mind that nobody thought of it before. No wonder it won a whole slew of awards.

Be careful with that 20-minute playtime, though. Each mission will take a few minutes and you can stop whenever you feel like it. But if you want to go the distance, The Crew offers a list of 50 missions, or enough to keep you busy for two to three hours.

Most easily forgotten rule: A communicated card is still part of your hand; you can (and sometimes must!) play it.




# # #