The Crew: Mission Deep Sea Review – From Trick-Taking Hater to 5-Star Convert

Last month we saw The Crew dominate the most-played board games list for January. While The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine took the lead, The Crew: Mission Deep Sea wasn’t far behind.

Yet despite this love from the community, I’ve never been a big fan of trick-taking games. Hearts did not steal my heart, and Fox in the Forest fell flatter than my 3rd-grade acting recital. We’re talking only-your-parents-are-clapping kind of flat.

Trick-taking games like to hide behind barricades of jargon. Tricks, Followers, Suits, Leaders, and Trumps. Like if trick-taking games were personified, they’d be the greasy-haired mechanic who tells you your flux capacitor has blown, and to fix that you’ll need a new plumbus.

I owe Tom Vassal a massive thanks for demystifying the jargon and explaining the concept of trick-taking so that even a dumb baby like me could understand.

So Let Me Pass on the Favour…

Despite the jargon, trick-taking games are fairly simple to play:

• Everyone must play a card from their hand.
• Then the first player (leader) plays a card of any colour (suit).
• Everyone else must then play a card of the same colour.
• If they don’t have a card of the same colour, they can play any card.
• Then the highest numbered card from the same suit as the leader wins all played cards.
• The one exception is if someone played a submarine card (trump card), then they win all the played cards.

I’ve also created a page illustrating how this works called what is a Trick-Taking game.

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea works this formula as though it were a piece of dough, pushing, punching, and aerating it until it becomes a delicious card-stock pizza.

First off, this is a cooperative game with limited communication, like Hanabi or Okey Dokey. Where talking about general strategy is fine, but you can’t say anything revealing the cards in your hand.

There is a Hail Mary though, or to keep with the nautical theme: A Sail Mary (I’ll show myself out). Where once per game, you can show one card in your hand, and through the use of a token let others know if it’s the highest, lowest, or only card you have of that colour.

This token is a fantastic pressure valve. Where in other communication games people do their best to maintain the silence but then start whistling like a kettle. Inadvertently ruining the puzzle of the game in doing so. For almost all games of The Crew: Mission Deep Sea I’ve played, the integrity of the game and secrecy of people’s hands have been maintained because of this freedom to give at least one clue.

Where’s the Hook?

Let me introduce the challenge deck, a well-stocked, good-looking deck, who loves dogs, enjoys romantic movies and takes pleasure in kicking your ass. In this deck, you’ll find challenges from being too easy to near impossible, ranked on a difficulty scale of 1-6.

Starting the game, you hand out a number of these cards based on whether you want a pleasurable tap on the backside or a solid kick from a steel-toed boot. Then you play until either you beat the challenge, or the challenge beats you.

This takes between 10-25 minutes and is a fantastic exercise in deduction and decision-making. Where you’re caught between making the right decision for the table, and the right decision for yourself.

What makes The Crew: Mission Deep Sea such a good game is how it engages everyone at the table. It gives everyone a puzzle they need to solve on their own and allows you to get better at Crewing.

The more you play, the more you understand what is a good move and what is a move that resembles Elaine’s dancing from Seinfeld. Occasionally, you’ll feel like a bad draw ruined you. But often, you’ll be dwelling on a misplay that you could’ve avoided.

Once you’re done, you have two choices: shuffle up and increase the difficulty, or shuffle up and decrease the difficulty.

Stopping is not an option.

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea is just that addictive, and the higher the challenge rating you go the more interesting and involving the puzzle becomes. Sucking you deeper and deeper into the game.

Every Gamer Should Try This

The worst thing about The Crew: Deep Sea Mission is that there’s a hidden cost of sleeves. I’ve done my best to avoid playing it too much but already I’m 20-30 games deep and my cards look like they’ve come home from a Fortitude Valley bender.

Otherwise, this is one of the few games that I believe every gamer should have in their collection. It tops all other small boxes/card games I’ve played. Which, in retrospect, is insane given my apprehension about getting it. However, that goes to show that you should never judge a book by its cover or a board game by its use of obscure antiquated terms.