The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine

Top Twenty Game of 2024

It was another great year of traveling the world, and reading excellent pieces of literature. Combine this with a full time job, and you would think that I would not have enough time for another hobby, but I enjoy nothing more than sitting down with a group of friends to play a game. I have been extremely lucky in this capacity for I was able to play 72 different games over the course of the year. I have taken that list of games, ran them through the Pub Meeple engine in order to put together this list of what I consider the 20 best games I have played this year. Here is what I think those games to be, and how their position has changed from the list last year:

20. Scythe (Down 2)

This is an amazing area control, economic game set in a post-World War I landscape in Eastern Europe. The mechanics of this game are phenomenal, and it is one of the more complicated games to be found on this list. Because of its complication, it makes it hard to get to the table, and to find people who are willing to play it. It also takes at least a couple of hours to play a game. I enjoy the time that I get to play the game, but because of the limited times that I get to play it, it ranks lower on the list.

19. Smash Up (New)

This is a game that has been introduced to me a few time over the years. I usually play it once with the person that introduced it to me, and then I instantly forget about it. Well, I ended up purchasing the app this year, and I find myself drifting to it often. It can be frustrating at time with the powers that come with some of the factions that you can mash up together, but it also fun being that frustrating player that makes everybody’s life a nightmare during a game. I can see myself playing this more of the course of the next year.

18. Stone Age (New)

I don’t play many worker placement games, but this one has become one of my favorites. There are many ways that you can find those victory points to make it a fun puzzle to engage with. It also has just enough luck thrown in to make any game interesting enough to not now what will happen in the end. My favorite part is that you need to use two workers in the hut in order to make another worker. Thematically it works, and overall, it is just a fun game to play.

17. Unmatched (Down 13)

I know that this game markets itself that it can be played by up to four players, but it really sings when played by only two. The game has great asymmetric characters that are balanced well, and they keep on adding new characters are environments to bring new battles to life. It is my favorite chess match, and I am always excited to see what new characters they will bring out. I usually play it on the app, and I would love for them to add more characters through that medium, but I am still enjoying the twelve that can be found there.

16. Cascadia (New)

This was an impulse buy I picked up over the summer while hanging out in Oregon. Since I have gotten it, it has made it to the table on numerous occasions. It is relatively easy to teach, and it looks like it would be an easy game to master, but in fact, it has a great puzzle within its simple design. I also love the fact that it comes with different levels of the puzzle, so you can always challenge yourself with something a little more difficult. I can see this one moving up on the list in following years.

15. Pandemic (Down 1)

Easily one of the best cooperative games ever made, but it has one flaw with it. In order to play at the level that it is designed at, you need to have a group of people who understand the game enough and are willing to have those discussions that the game is designed to have. If you do not, what happens is that one person starts to quarterback, and it becomes just one person playing the game. I will admit it that I tend to become the quarterback, and my goal is to have fun not tell people what to do. Because of this, I usually play this game by myself, and it still brings me a lot of enjoyment as I try to save the world from various threats.

14. Dungeons and Dragons (Down 9)

Just like last year, I have to say that I know that this is not a board game, and some people will believe that it should not be on this list. To those people, I would say that any time I can get a group of friends together to laugh and enjoy the story that we unfold, it is considered a game. I am on the third year of this campaign, and it is starting to wind up. We have played together for so long together that we know each others’ characters and quirks so well that the role-playing aspect has taken over the general game play. It has been a fun group, and I will be sorry when we wrap up the story. I hope that I can find another group to play with next year that is as tight as this group. It is because of this that this game will always find a place on this list.

13. Raiders of the North Sea

I know that there are a lot of other Garphill Games out there that people are always talking about, and I start every new year vowing that I will try another one of them, but then the year passes and the only one I have played is Raiders of the North Sea. I have not even played any of the numerous expansions that can make this game a more complicated one. Despite this, I still love playing this game. I got the digital version of it to play while traveling through Iceland, and now every time I play it, I am reminded of that trip. It is a great worker placement game, and I can only see the playing of a different Garphill Game getting me to move it off of this list.

12. Castles of Burgundy (New)

I know many people have this game as their top spot on their favorite games of all time, so I made the effort to try it out this year. I can see why this gets that distinction from so many people; it is a great game with mechanics that I have never seen anywhere else. It is having a little bit of a revival at this time because of a new edition that has come out which makes the game look spectacular, but the original game is just as good. The long game play makes it hard to get to the table at times, but it is always a joy when it happens.

11. Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Up 4)

I had heard that it was a great game to play with people but most people liked to play it solo. There was going to be a lot of times when I would be by myself, and I wanted a good solo experience for those lonely nights, so I picked this game up. I am glad I did. It has many different scenarios that you can play through and each of them have their own little challenge with the same rule set. The scenarios are even fun to play through more than once as the outcomes change as you go through them. This is one that will always be on my shelf, and I can’t wait to play through more stories as they come out.

10. Long Shot (New)

I bought this game for a trip that I was going to take with a group of friends, and then we didn’t go on that trip. I had this game that was supposed to be great for bigger groups of people, and now I could only play it with my wife at my house, so I needed to find a bigger group of people to play it with. This is when I brought it to the pub, and I found that group quickly. This became the game that I would always bring to the pub, and it really started to shine when we played it with eight people. I love this game, and I love how the final race becomes a crazy race that nobody knows who is going to win. It is always a hit, and I have found very few people who have not enjoyed it.

9. The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine (Up 1)

I will lump both of the Crew games together because they work off of the same mechanic, and I am still surprised how collaborative a trick taking game can be. Last year I included the Deep Sea Nine edition of the game which I do believe is slightly better. This year I hopped back to the original, The Quest for Planet Nine, because I have been playing it more often with the groupI have played with for four years, and we are at the 43rd mission. We hope to finish it in the next couple of months, and I have no idea what type of feeling that will give me. This is a great game, and it is easy to bring to the table because once people get into its addictive nature, it ends up getting played all night long.

8. Everdell (Down 1)

Everdell will always hold a special place in my heart. It was 2020, and we were stuck in our house. We needed something to do or we were going to go crazy. I had done some research on modern board games, and I had discovered this one. It was a new way of thinking about games for me, so I picked up a copy of it. Instantly, it became the thing that we did during the long evenings to help us make it through the pandemic. We might have overplayed it, and it sat on the shelf more lately than it has in the past. Still, we bring it out, and I am quickly reminded of it brilliance, especially when you add an expansion or two. It is the game that got me back into the board game hobby, and I will always appreciate the way it helped me through a difficult time of my life.

7. Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile (Down 4)

This is not a game for everybody. The rules are expansive, and it is hard to teach people how to play the game because of it. There is also the problem of the game evolving after each play as the cards change, thereby, changing the way the game is played. But I have been lucky to find a group of people to play with that is enjoying the history that we are creating with the board. When the moment of that history is dramatic, and the group is adding to creating that history, this game really sings. It is hard to get the group together to play, but it is fun every time I am able to make it happen.

6. Clank! In! Space! (New)

I know that this list does not reflect the fact that I have been getting into deck-building lately, but one deck-building game stood head and shoulders above all the others that I played this year, Clank! In! Space! I loved the way the game combines this famous mechanic with a push your luck element. I was lucky enough to play this version of the game as well as the original Clank! Both are great games, but I do like the space version better. The deck of cards is more diverse, and allows for more fun combinations. Still, if you only have the opportunity to play the original, it will still be a lot of fun.

5. Eldritch Horror (Up 3)

This game is Pandemic on steroids with a better story it tells. It is a lot more complicated than Pandemic, and a game of Eldritch Horror is an epic adventure with twists and turns as you try to save the world from a Lovecraftian apocalypse. I have been able to move beyond the base game to play a couple of the expansions to this game, and it makes the game a lot tougher, but also a greater story. I do not mind if I lose against the game because it turns the story into this amazing tragedy that would be worthy of the big screen. It is not a game for everybody, but I will happy join in whenever it is being offered up to play.

4. Imperial Assault (Up 2)

I have always enjoyed this game, but I have always had a hard time finding people to complete the campaign with me. That changed this year. I now have a group, and we are halfway through the campaign. It is fun to see how the characters get more powerful as you move you way through it, and the scenarios are nicely balanced. It also creates a nice story in a light RPG setting that does not rely to heavily on the rules. I am excited to see how it will all end as a couple of the main baddies have already popped up, and there are a couple more exciting adventures planned. The goal is to finish on May the 4th, and I know that it will not disappoint.

3. Root (Up 6)

This is an amazing game and I am starting to feel comfortable playing two of the factions, the Eyrie, and the Marquis. I still struggle how to make the other two work in the base game, and I know that there are other factions out there just waiting to be learned. I love how well researched each faction is, and how well they balance each other out. Any game of Root is up for grabs just as long as the people playing know how to play. That is the biggest problem with this game. The learning curve is so high that getting it to the table with people who know how to play is almost impossible. But it is such a good game that when you find those people who know how to play, it becomes one of the best games you will ever play. As I learn more about this game, I can see it taking over the number one spot eventually, but for now, it will reside happily right here.

2. Isle of Sky

This is still one of my favorite games to get to the table. I always keep a bottle of scotch on hand so when it does get to the table we can play it the way that it is meant to play. I still have not gotten bored of the base game even though I have the big box version of it with all of the expansions available to me, but still the variance that happens with the base game makes me happy. It also moves at a nice pace, so there is always something to do as the game progresses. And if it ever slows down, there is always the scotch to take a sip off of.

1 Chinatown

I know that there are a lot of board game enthusiasts out there who will be surprised by this pick with all of the problems that come along with this game. It has been repackaged three times, and they still have not taken away the obvious prejudice on the board, and it would take a quick reskinning of the game to solve this problem. From my understanding, this has happened with the game, Waterfall Park, but I have not been able to play this version of the game. Until I do, I will still play this game. I never laugh so hard when playing this game, and I never end up winning. The rules are so simple, but the game play is so intense that it makes it easy to get to the table, and most people who love the act of negotiation love to play this game. I will have to hunt down that new version of the game to see if I can get over the problems that come with this game so I can continue to enjoy it guilt free. Otherwise, I still think it is too good of a game to ignore completely.

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine – A Review

Some people may be wondering why I am reviewing a game that won the prestigious Duetscher Speilepreis award in 2020 for the best board game. It should be obvious that this is a great card game, and the fact that it is now available in so many different shops around the world beyond the typical board game stores should make it a game that will soon be in everybody’s home. Why would I need to throw in my two cents, when people don’t really need to hear it anyway?

Well, it is a great game worth talking about. It only takes five minutes to learn how to play, but the amount of time that you will play, and how many times you will want to come back to the game makes this game worthy of being talked about again.

GAMEPLAY

The Crew is a collaborative trick taking card game where communication is limited. When I heard about it, I couldn’t wrap my head around a collaborative card game that used the trick taking mechanic. But it works. Basically, there are four suits of nine cards each, and a trump suit that has four cards. After dealing out all of the cards, cards from a smaller deck is selected from depending on what part of the adventure you are on. People take turns around the table selecting which card it is they will take on a trick, and without speaking game play begins.

There are ways to communicate a little bit of what is in your hand to help with that urge to work together, and there are a couple of special challenges that happen along the way to your voyage to planet nine. A hand can take anywhere from five to ten minutes, and from my experience, the moment you finish one hand, you want to scoop them up and play a new hand, whether that is to repeat the challenge you did no win, or move on to the next one. The game play is very addictive, and we found ourselves playing late into the evening with the promise of this being the last hand over and over again.

It also solves one of the biggest problems of collaborative games, the quarterback. I love playing collaborative games, and I always want to manipulate the board the way I see it so I can beat the game. This happens so much that I have the Pandemic app on my tablet so I can play the game over and over again without having to find others to play it with. This becomes a problem when I play with other people because I want to tell everybody what they should do. I have to remind myself that they are playing as well, and I need to keep my mouth shut. The communication rules written into The Crew will not allow one person to take control of the game, and creates some tense moments during the game play.

Rating – 10

THEME

On the back of the rule book, you will see this hook to the adventure you will go on if you choose to continue to open the pages. It tells the story of a group of astronauts who go through training, blast off from Earth, and the problems they encounter along the way as they pass the various planets of our galaxy. Each challenge comes with a little flavor text that you have to read before you try to overcome the challenge. The flavor text is about all there is to the theme of the game. Yes, there are some that work better with the challenge as opposed to others, but for the most part, they don’t really add much to the overall experience of the game. Yes, we would take the time to read the flavor text before each challenge, but most of them end up being pretty forgettable as you spend more time trying to get over the challenge rather than think about why you are getting over that challenge. For the most part, they could have tagged any story to the game play and it would have felt exactly the same, and this is not why you play the game over and over again.

Rating – 6

ARTWORK

Even though the theme feels a little tacked on to this game, designer, Thomas Sing, and artist, Marco Armbruster, made sure that the artwork bought into this theme. The pictures on each of the cards lends itself to the story and each highlights another problem that could be encountered along the way to Planet Nine. But this is not where the genius of these cards lie. Marco Armbruster understood that many people would want to play this game, and he designed the artwork on the cards to be all inclusive.

It started off with the colors of the four suits. Sometimes in low light, the colors of blue and green can blend together making them hard to tell apart, especially when the only color used on the card is for the number. By making highlighting the picture in the same color as well, it makes it easier to distinguish between them. There is nothing worse than accidentally playing the wrong card especially in a game that every card played eventually becomes important.

This inclusivity continues to people that can’t see color at all. Each of the four suits of the game are also designed with easy to distinguish symbols underneath each of the numbers, allowing people who are color blind to play the game just as easily. It was a great way to bring the fun of this game to more people, and just adds to the enjoyment.

This game could have easily been created with a two regular decks of cars, and couple of quarters, but because of the artwork, you really want to play with this deck. It makes it feel more like an event and less of just playing a game of cards.

Rating – 9

INTERACTIVITY

You wold think that a game whose key rule is no talking between the players would not have a lot of interaction, but this is where you would be wrong. Just because you can’t talk about the cards you have in your hand does not mean that you can’t talk. The game presents this wonderful opportunity to get together with friends and just talk.

But the best interaction with this game happens when the play stops. Whether you win or lose the round, you are going to want to talk about what happened during the gameplay afterwards. Every time I have played, we have discussed what moves worked really well, and mistakes that we made along the way. Even with the limited amount of communication, you find that it gives you enough information to make good decisions with the group. You also find that you start to trust your teammates to do the right thing, and you can even start to anticipate what your teammates will do next. The group I play with on a regular basis has gotten so comfortable with each other that we have named our What’sApp group after the game and our the trust we have built extends beyond the game play itself. The interaction in this game is so surprising that it always becomes a part of game nights because people find that they enjoy themselves that much because of that interaction.

Rating – 10

EXPANSIONS

There is not an expansion to this game, but that does not mean that you cannot get a lot out of this game. With the fifty missions that come in the log book, it will keep any group busy for a long time, and I have found myself returning back to earlier missions that were really fun to play and replaying them.

There is another version of this game that has been released that is its own stand alone game called The Crew: Mission Deep Sea. The game introduces its own set of rules and game play, but still has the same feel as the original. It only comes with 35 missions, but they are a little more complicated in game play. I would recommend playing The Quest for Planet Nine first because it is a little easier to digest, and if you wish to continue with the collaborative game play, get the second installment of this game. It is a little easier to find the first one, and it has become a staple at Target stores now, selling for around ten dollars; whereas, the second version is a little harder to find.

Either way, you will not be disappointed by picking up this game.

Rating – 8

OVERALL

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine is a really fun game that I come back to time and time again. I have started three different quests with different groups of people and each time I introduce the game, we spend the whole night playing and laughing. It is a great shared experience, and I can see why it won the Duetscher Speilepreis award. The best part about it is its price. It is not an expensive game which is becoming a rarity in this market where publishers keep on creating bigger games with more components. It is nice to know that there are affordable games still out there.

It is also an easy game to teach, especially if people know the trick taking mechanic from card games such as Hearts and Spades. Each time I have taught this game, we have been up and playing it within five minutes. The early missions are exceptionally easy, but they get people into the game. But don’t worry about it being too easy of a game. By the time you reach the eighth mission, it is difficult enough that it will take you multiple times to get through that mission.

If there is any complaint to the game, it is that the theme does not really contribute much to the overall enjoyment of the game. Basically, it is nothing more than flavor text, and it could have just been a list of challenges that is tied to any other theme. The game is still so much fun that it is a minor complaint that is quickly forgotten about as you play. I definitely recommend that you go out and form your own crew today. You will find yourself wasting hours playing this memorable game.

Overall – 4.3 out of 5 stars