The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine – The Award-Winning Cooperative Card Game
50 missions. No talking. One signal per round. The game that invented cooperative trick-taking and won the Kennerspiel des Jahres — under 0.
📋 Game Details
The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine is the game that changed what a cooperative card game could be. Designed by Thomas Sing and published by KOSMOS in 2019, it won the Kennerspiel des Jahres 2020 — Germany's most prestigious board game award for complex games — and launched an entirely new genre of cooperative trick-taking.
The premise is elegantly simple: you are astronauts on a mission to reach Planet Nine at the edge of the solar system. Across 50 missions of increasing difficulty, your crew must complete specific card objectives — win this card, win the first trick, never win cards of this color — all without talking to each other. One radio signal per round. That's it.
Players who discover Quest for Planet Nine consistently describe the same first reaction — surprise that something so small and inexpensive can create so much tension, communication, and genuine cooperative satisfaction. It is the game that proves a brilliant idea doesn't need a big box.
How to Play — Watch First
What Is Quest for Planet Nine?
Quest for Planet Nine is a cooperative trick-taking card game. The deck contains 40 cards across four colored suits (numbered 1–9) and four rocket trumps. Each mission from the logbook specifies task cards that the team must complete — specific cards that must be won by specific players, or tricks that must be won in specific orders.
Players take turns playing cards following standard trick-taking rules — lead any card, everyone else follows suit if possible, highest card of the led suit wins unless a rocket trump is played. The cooperative twist: each player has been assigned tasks they must personally win. You can't win your teammate's task for them.
Communication is restricted to a single radio token per player per mission — place a card face up with the token indicating whether it's your highest, lowest, or only card of that suit. Every other piece of information must be inferred from play.
Why It Won the Kennerspiel
Genuine Innovation
Cooperative trick-taking didn't exist before The Crew. Thomas Sing invented a new genre with a single elegant mechanic tweak.
Radio Signal
One token, three positions (highest / lowest / only). The most information-dense communication system in any card game.
50 Missions
A campaign logbook of 50 missions with a loose space narrative — each mission introduces new constraints on what tasks mean.
Under 0
One of the best value propositions in all of board gaming — award-winning design in a tiny box at an accessible price.
Rating Breakdown
Pros & Cons
✅ What We Love
- Invented cooperative trick-taking — genuinely original
- 50-mission logbook provides enormous play value
- Under 0 — the best value in cooperative gaming
- 20-minute sessions make it endlessly playable
- Scales from 2 to 5 players — works for everyone
- Kennerspiel des Jahres 2020 winner
❌ What Could Be Better
- Less task variety than Mission Deep Sea
- Requires basic trick-taking knowledge
- Later missions can feel luck-dependent
- Mission Deep Sea improves on it in most ways
Who Is This Game For?
🎯 Perfect For:
- Anyone curious about the award-winning game everyone talked about
- Card game fans who want a cooperative experience for under 0
- Families and friend groups who want quick, brilliant cooperative play
- Players new to The Crew series — the logical starting point
❌ Not Ideal For:
- Players who have never played any trick-taking game
- Groups who want sessions longer than 30 minutes
- Anyone who already owns Mission Deep Sea — it supersedes this one
🚀 Final Verdict
The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine is one of the most important cooperative card games ever designed. It invented a new genre, won the Kennerspiel des Jahres, and delivers more genuine cooperative satisfaction per dollar than almost any other game on the market. Mission Deep Sea is the better game — but Quest for Planet Nine is where the journey begins, and it remains an extraordinary experience in its own right. At under 0, it is essential.
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