The Crew - A Card Game for Everyone 

Hello!

I’m here!

Yep

Yep! And subscribed to No pun included now as well ;)

Yup, they are friends the two channels. I think it is pretty cool!

ohhhhhhh god I thought he said "Harambe" and I was wondering if he really just snuck in a deep cut 2016 meme in a really weird yet still technically accurate way

Heh... I was on the fence but that was actually the moment that made me want The Crew... a litmus test as to if I can trust a reviewers opinion is if they don't like Hanabi ;D

One of my least favourite games ever. Was worried this game would be too similar.

me and my bf have hundreds of board games and Hanabi is the only one that caused us to get in a legitimate argument lol. awful game

Even with all the incredible, deep, complex and thematic experiences you can get with boardgames these days, euchre remains one of my favourite tabletop games ever

Nailed it!

Did you Detroit smash it?

Holy crap, you're right.

Dude, it's a trick-taking card game. You're halfway through the game by the time you've dealt everyone their cards.

Doubt it.

Where. Did. You. Get. That. Shirt?

They also have V for Jacks and I think R for Kings. What is happening?

@@XShrike0 It's a French deck of cards D = Dame R =Roi V =Valet :)

I mean, I'm right there with ya. But I bought it moments ago so that'd I'd be good and ready when we're cleared to get the board game night up and running again! Aka, you can't play what you don't own!

You can play pretty much anything on Tabletop Simulator, so a separate list doesn't make sense.

Вадим Назаров Hearts and Spades are standards for me and where I grew up, so The Crew and The Fox In The Forest are natural games to me. I haven’t heard of Durak until this video, though, and Efka makes it sound super interesting.

Never heard of Durak. Thanks for showing me how it’s spelled!

It's also super simple with some depth in card counting aspect) Also with multiplayer and teams variants!) Knew it my whole life (I'm from Russia), and my granddas showed some nuances and strategies that stuck with me to this day. I guess my interest in board games actually has roots in our plays of durak and other games) Btw, "durak" is "fool" in russian. So basically you play to avoid remaining the last aforementioned fool)

I learned Durak from a Ukranian friend in college and enjoy it. I've never thought of it as trick-taking, though.

You don`t need it, it`s cards with numbers on them. Get the German version from Amazon uk and download the rules/logbook from board game geek. It`s still only £10.

That's sad, and an unfortunate personality trait.

Not really. It just means that she prefers competitive games. It has no bearing on anything else in life. You internet kids. The real world is much more nuanced than you think.

Depends on how much you value it compared to it's cost. The mechanisms, luck of the die (the bag is essentially a die that you customize), and components don't justify the price in my opinion. Edit: I should probably explain why. Top of the list is that my group doesn't like constructing decks beforehand which is a key element. Sure, I could build their decks for them but then either I'm to blame for losses or we end up back at the first problem. Second, you need multiple copies of the core set to build a deck properly for 4 players. That's a steep cost already for only a few chapters of one story that we know has expansions which extend. Third, I think I remember reading that I would need to buy multiple copies of the big expansions to play them "properly with all of the options". Fourth, it's co-op. Those type of games typically flop for the group I play with. We prefer to compete in games that are either cutthroat or really puzzly (like Azul or Great Western Trail). You get the idea. That's a LOT of money compared to say... "Legendary Encounters: Alien" which has 4 chapters, an expansion that adds more, an alien player that comes via a chestburster mechanism which we do our best to prevent, a traitor mechanism, scoring for campaign play, etc.

It's okay Paco, I agree with you.

@@Reggie1408 nice

It’s amazing

@@RandomPerson-nd2ey What does the cost of a game has to do if it is good or mediocre?

This might be not relevant for you but maybe somebody will want to find the answer in the comments. No, it shouldn't be STRICKTLY you, who should play the green 7. The green 7 should just be in the trick you are winning. Meaning if you have green 9, you might just want to go with green 9 and wait for somebody to lay down green 7 and other cards. Then you win this trick and complete the task. OR let's say your highest green card is 1 and you need to win that green 7. Then what you can do is to wait until that person with green 7 drops every, let's say, blue cards from his hand. Then you play (let's say) a blue 9, that person doesn't have any blue cards so he can play any card he wants and he cannot win the trick, he plays green 7 and you win the trick.

Elaine had them for a very long time and I think she bought them in France.

No, you cannot. Which adds extra puzzle layers.

Because it’s cool to hate old things.

Sam I’ll tell grandma the bad news 🥺

@@Reggie1408 I only like Hanabi when it`s stripped of the memory aspect, as it is on BGA. Almoast as difficult, but far less frustrating.

You're not the only person to feel like that about trick taking.

@@NoPunIncluded it finally clicked with me this evening. For context, I've had the game for 3 months 😂. We played the first 5 missions and loved it 😀

What do you hate about a The Mind?

The two really aren't much alike. They're both cooperative and have restricted communication. They both use cards, but in very different ways. There ends the similarity. I have zero interest in The Mind, but The Crew is amazing for my crew of gamers.

Remember that you múst follow suit if you have the same color of cards in your hand. By showing that the blue 9 is the only blue card he has, Efka signals a suit the other player can use to give him the freedom to play a card of a different color on a trick (as the green 9 is the highest value of that color, you must do this to "give" it to another player).

No longer identifiable pack of cards Elaine bought in France a couple of decades ago.

That's exactly right, he got blue 7 and he got blue 7 task. He need to win this trick in order to win the game. And in order to win that trick, blue 7 should be the highest card in that trick. Meaning nobody around the table should play blue 8 or 9.

Because she led the trick with blue. If you cannot follow suit you can/must play a differently colored card. If you do that, you cannot win the trick even if it's a high number. The person who starts the trick decides which color you need to use to win.

Every video requires Bessie

Nah, it's just the make up girl they hired.

From what I under stand the player who’s mission it is had to win the trick with the green 9 in present in the trick, not actually with the green 9. And since the player lead with a blue 9 and Efka had no more blue cards he could put down any card he likes, such the green 9. Since the blue 9 was trump for the first person she win the trick and the mission. I hope that helps. Be well!

change friends

@@Reggie1408 maybe - I love the game, but it's still harder to understand conceptually than something like Hanabi or The Mind which can literally be taught in 2 mins

@@Reggie1408 nah, i'll have to tag that as 'strongly disagree' - even playing with an incompetant Hanabi player, you're going to come out with some sort of score but if someone doesn't know what they're doing in The Crew it's unliklely you'll pass the first mission. Anecdotal I know, but my 8 year old, who is well versed in gaming, picked up Hanabi in 2 mins easily - but trying to explain the nuance of The Crew was like trying to explain avation to a dog

@@Reggie1408 now now, let's not go down the insult path when we're discussing cardboard please. Fact is - laying down cards in number sequence is a lot easier to 'get' than The Crew's take on trick taking where a certain player/s have to 'capture' the trick via headsier means. Thus, Hanabi is a lot easier to teach and understand.

Some people just don't get trick taking games, I am one of those. I never could wrap my brain around it. Each time someone says "I'll teach you" it's followed by "everyone teaches trick taking games wrong, I will make you understand" and then they confuse me further and I hate it. Trick taking games are not for me at all, and I absolutely hated the mind. So when I played the crew in January, I want to gouge my eyes out.

She needs to win a trick when the green 9 is played. As the narrator played the green 9 into a blue trick Emma wins.

Isn't she trying to win a trick for the green nine that's showing on the table?

As in the task card on the table

Remember that the person who starts the trick decides what the winning color for that trick is.

And yo momma.

Two of the games in that pile I would say are some of my favourite games. It's just a throwaway gag.

@@NoPunIncluded Alright then! :D Ordered The Crew for nicholas day btw. Thanks for the great review! Hope this fares better than the last coop game I introduced my family to, which ended in reproachful comments and such :D

So she doesn’t know she’s stuck with you yet? That’ll be interesting when she finds out...

I recently picked up Fox in the Forest and I've been having a terrific time with it. It's another trick taking game designed specifically for 2 people. There's also a co-op version of it if you want called Fox in the Forest Duet

not for me - I think it's more than fine at 2 player.. go for it yo

I couldn’t wait for the quarantine to stop so I played it at 2P with my 10-yo son and it’s excellent. He had played Fox in the Forest once and Tichu once so he knew the concept. He was a nervous wreck but he loves it, too. More missions tonight!

So this is the mind?

I'd disagree there - whenever anyone explains The Mind to me I'm like 'that sounds terrible' - this actually seems to involve some tangible and at least semi-reliable strategy.

Hanabi? More like Hanasbeen... hehehe.

Sam You’re absolutely brilliant.

The rules for this is literally few sentences, what youre talking about? You have 4 color suits and cards numbered from 1 to 9. Trick taking in this game is when somebody leads the trick with one card, everybody got to play the same suit. Person with the highest number wins the trick. If you don't have the suit, you can play whatever, but you cannot win. Rockets win any suit. That's literally the whole mechanism of the trick taking and the rest are small details. What separates this game from others is being cooperative and not being able to talk. And of course the goal. It is even simpler - you have objective tricks you need to win, when you do this - you win the game. That should easily fit into 2 minutes if you ask me. Your party will definitely ask some questions, answer them and now it's 4 minutes, let's play

@@oleksandrhorskyi8442 I agree that the overarching rules could be explained in a few sentences. But my gripe is that the game manual does not do that. Nor any other resource I’ve found.

@@oleksandrhorskyi8442 That said, it is a really great little game. I have subsequently learned the rules and been able to explain them to others in a few sentences, just as yourself. My comment was about the poor onboarding. Simple should be simple.

@@magne6049 You wouldn't believe this but I've never actually learnt this game using the game manual, I watched some videos before and got a good grip on the game, no problems. And today was the first time I opened the manual and studied it and you are right, it is not very clear on some points and some small things are scattered across the whole manual. So I totally agree with you on that point!

It’s not,yet it is, but it’s not but it actually is... not... is.

The hype is real though.

Try Skull King. It's cheap, light, and not head ache inducing.

Limiting communication is a big part of many co-op games, like Hanabi, The Mind, Fox In The Forest Duet, etc. It seems counter-intuitive, I agree, but these games (except The Mind) allow very specific communication that actually turns it into a deduction game. You can still table talk, you just can’t say “I have lots of green cards” or “You should play a low blue” or anything like that.

There’s more to cooperating than talking...