RogerBW's Blog

Marlow Tabletop and Board Games 5 January 2021 11 January 2021

This Meetup-based boardgames group remains on-line for the moment; as usual we got together on Jitsi and then played some games online.

Just one specific game, this time: The Crew. For the few people who don't already know, it's a cooperative trick-taking game (four players, four suits of 1-9 plus four special cards, 10-card hands) with variable winning conditions: for example, a specific player might have to win a trick that has the green 3 in it. That's easy if that player has the green 9, but they probably don't, and it can need some quite careful setting up.

You're also limited in communication, and unlike many limited-communication games this one specifies exactly what you're allowed to say: once per hand you can indicate that a particular card is the highest, the lowest, or the only one of its suit in your hand. That's it. (And the group will collectively have multiple tasks to be achieved, so you can't use all four of the table's communication opportunities on the same task.)

It went pretty well; we played eleven hands in our two-hour session, and only lost once. (It looks as though at least part of the setup is random; in the hand we lost, we had to give someone a win with a green 5 before someone else got a win with a green 6, which I think may not be possible depending on the deal. But when we re-played that "level", we got a much easier configuration.)

The theme is so thin that it doesn't bother me; this is effectively an abstract game with some space art on the cards. Good fun, though I think not one I'm likely to buy even when in-person games are possible again.

[Buy The Crew at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1