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The Crew: Mission Deep Sea
A trick-taking puzzle where talking is basically against the rules.
Designed by Thomas Sing · 2021
One of the best small-box co-ops out there, and the rare trick-taker that converts people who swear they hate trick-takers. Just bring patience and sleeves.
Best for: Couples and small groups who want a quick, brainy puzzle they can replay forever
What it is
Here's the setup. You and your table are a submarine crew, and you win or lose together. It's a trick-taking card game, so you follow suit and the highest card wins, but nobody's racking up points. Instead you draw task cards, and each player has to win specific cards in a specific way. The twist that makes Deep Sea sing is flexibility. You build each mission from a pile of tasks until the difficulty hits your target, so the same level reshuffles into something new every time.
The catch
And you can barely talk. You get one sonar token per game to flip a single card face up and signal it's your highest, lowest, or only card of that color. That's the whole conversation. The rest is reading the table, watching what gets played, and praying your teammate understood the desperate look you're throwing across the table. Real players keep saying the same thing: it converts trick-taking skeptics. The puzzle is the draw, not the suits, and that's why it lands.
Who it's for
Two cautions. At two players you're stuck with a dummy hand, and most folks agree it loses some bite there, so grab a third if you can. And the cards wear quick, so sleeve them early. The bigger thing to know is that one player misreading the board can sink everyone, which is the tension and the frustration in one package. If a quick, silent, deeply replayable brain-knot sounds good, this is about as good as small boxes get.
What other players say
This write-up is grounded in real reviews and player discussion, not just one opinion. A few worth reading:
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