• The Crew the Quest for Planet Nine — product image 1
  • The Crew the Quest for Planet Nine — product image 2
  • The Crew the Quest for Planet Nine — product image 3
  • The Crew the Quest for Planet Nine — product image 4
  • The Crew the Quest for Planet Nine — product image 5
  • The Crew the Quest for Planet Nine — product image 6

KOSMOS

The Crew the Quest for Planet Nine

Out of stock
$20.00
$20.00 $25.00

SAVE $5.00

Players
2–5 players
Play time
Up to 1 hr
Age
Teens
Complexity
Medium
Sold out

About the Game

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine is an award-winning, co-operative trick-taking card game for 2 to 5 players, aged 10 and up, with quick missions taking about 20 minutes. Working together as astronauts on a perilous space mission, players must navigate 50 distinct scenarios where success is determined not by winning the most tricks, but by ensuring the right players win the right cards at the right time under strict communication limits.

How It Plays

In this space adventure, players set off as astronauts to investigate rumours of an unknown planet. The journey is structured as a campaign spanning 50 unique missions, which can be paused and resumed between sessions. Unlike traditional competitive trick-taking card games, players win or lose as a team. Each mission assigns specific tasks to individual players, requiring them to win particular cards in their tricks. However, communication is severely restricted in the vacuum of space, meaning players must carefully use limited tokens to signal information about their hands without giving away the game.

Key Features

  • Co-operative Play: A unique twist on classic card games where teamwork is essential to succeed.
  • Campaign-Driven: Play through a narrative-driven campaign of 50 missions that increase in difficulty.
  • Task-Based Challenges: Winning tricks is only useful if the correct player secures their required target cards.
  • Limited Communication: Strategise with your team using restrictive signalling tokens, making every decision tense and meaningful.

Background and Legacy

Published by KOSMOS, The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine has quickly become a modern classic in the card game genre. Featuring 50 progressively challenging missions, the game also saw three bonus missions released in the specialised board-game magazine spielbox in early 2020. It has been widely praised for its innovative blend of classic trick-taking mechanics and co-operative puzzle-solving.

Shipping

$15 flat shipping · FREE over $150

Shipping details

Watch: How to play

Rules of The Crew the Quest for Planet Nine

  • Players and setup: 2–5 players, ages 10+, about 20 minutes per mission. Shuffle the 40-card deck (four coloured suits plus the four rocket cards) and deal all cards to the crew.
  • Commander: The player dealt the four-rocket card becomes commander and leads the first trick.
  • Tasks: Each mission deals out task cards showing specific cards that particular players must win in their tricks; check the mission's rules for any extra twists.
  • Turn flow: The leader plays a card and others must follow its colour if they can; the highest card of the led colour wins the trick, unless a rocket (trump) is played, in which case the highest rocket wins.
  • Communication: Talking about your hand is forbidden. Once per mission, each player may use their communication token on one card to signal whether it is their highest, lowest, or only card of that colour.
  • Objective: The team wins the mission only when every assigned task is completed by the correct player; winning the most tricks personally does not matter.
  • Ending: If any task becomes impossible to complete, the mission fails immediately and is replayed; otherwise play through the tricks until all tasks are done.
  • Campaign: Progress through 50 missions of rising difficulty, pausing and resuming the logbook between sessions.

Strategy

  • Save your signal: Your one communication token is precious, so hold it until it can clarify a genuinely ambiguous task rather than spending it early out of habit.
  • Read teammates' signals: A token showing a 'highest' or 'lowest' card tells you a lot about the rest of that player's suit — plan your leads around it.
  • Think about who should win: Before leading, ask whose task cards are still outstanding and lead colours that let the right player capture them.
  • Track the rockets: Only four rocket cards exist, so remembering which have been played helps you judge whether a high colour card will actually take a trick.
  • Slough wisely: When you cannot follow suit, discard cards that are irrelevant to tasks and avoid dumping a card someone else might need to win.
  • Stay flexible: Tasks can be re-dealt differently each attempt, so treat a failed mission as information about what to try next rather than proof of a fixed plan.
  • Watch the whole table: Note which colours each player has stopped following; those voids often decide where a task card will end up.