Wouter & Ymke 
Ever dreamed of piloting a plane and executing a perfect landing at the world’s most challenging airports? Sky Team lets you live that dream! This cooperative game transforms you and a friend into a dynamic pilot and co-pilot duo, working in sync to navigate the skies and master the unique demands of each destination. It’s all about teamwork, strategy, and a bit of luck to ensure every landing is a safe one.
👥 2 players, ages 12+
⌛ Playing time: 20 minutes
📝 Designer: Luc Rémond
🎨 Artwork: Eric Hibbeler & Adrien Rives
🏢 Publisher: 999 Games (Dutch version, review copy provided) Originally published by Scorpion Masqué.
How to Play:
Sky Team is a cooperative game for two players, in which you take on the roles of pilot and co-pilot. Over the course of seven rounds, your plane steadily loses altitude as you and your partner strategize to land safely. At the beginning of each round, you discuss your plans before rolling your dice in secret. Once the dice are rolled, communication about your flight plans is off-limits.
Each player has common tasks to perform, but just like in a real cockpit, you each have specialized duties. These tasks are depicted by different colored spaces for dice placement. Two critical actions must be completed every round: keeping the plane steady to avoid a spin-out and crash, and managing the engines to advance the plane 0 to 2 spaces on the approach track, depending on the combined dice value and aerodynamic markers.
But it’s not just about your plane; you need to avoid mid-air collisions with other planes. Both players have radio spaces to communicate and direct other planes to move. While both can perform these tasks, some are unique to each role. The pilot handles the landing gear and brakes, while the co-pilot manages the flaps. These actions have specific dice placement rules affecting air resistance and the aerodynamic markers.
As each round ends, your plane loses altitude, bringing you closer to the final landing phase in the last round. By this stage, your plane should be correctly positioned on the approach track. In the final round, the engines still require dice, but their combined value must not exceed the brakes’ value, or the plane will crash. Moreover, all flaps and landing gear must be deployed, and the plane’s axis must be perfectly horizontal for a smooth landing.
If you and your co-pilot meet all these requirements, your team will achieve a flawless landing and win the game.
Review: Sky Team
Sky Team recently soared to new heights by winning the prestigious Spiel des Jahres award. Designed by Luc Rémond and published by Scorpion Masqué, we got our hands on the Dutch version from 999 Games. This cooperative gem is for two players, ages 12 and up, and each game takes around 20 minutes—perfect for a quick yet thrilling flight.
Components and Artwork:
The game components are solid and reliable. While nothing is mind-blowingly innovative, everything works perfectly. The dual-layered board is a nice touch, keeping everything smoothly in place. The elegant artwork by Eric Hibbeler and Adrien Rives truly makes you feel like you’re in a cockpit. It’s immersive without being overwhelming—a perfect balance.
Gameplay and Replayability:
Sky Team eases you in with an introductory scenario to familiarize you with the basic mechanics. Once you successfully land in Montreal, you unlock the flight log, opening up new challenges. These include extra planes in the approach line and tricky turns around mountains, requiring precise maneuvers to avoid a crash. As the difficulty ramps up, you’ll face issues like kerosene leakage, braking on ice, and battling heavy winds.
The green scenarios start easy, focusing on steady kerosene management and training interns. Moving to the yellow airports, things get trickier. By the time you hit the red scenarios, you’ll face a combination of problems, earning the title of elite pilot upon success. For the real daredevils, the black scenarios combine the toughest challenges, promising heroic landings that will go down in history.
You can find additional scenarios on Scorpion Masqué’s website here.
More on Gameplay:
While dice games often rely heavily on luck, Sky Team provides ample opportunities to mitigate this. The altitude track includes reroll tokens that can be used anytime, and players can use dice to gain cups of coffee—each cup allows you to adjust a die’s value by one. Special abilities, depending on the scenario, let players modify or gain extra dice or boosts.
Final Thoughts:
Sky Team’s cooperative nature means that player interaction is crucial for success. Discussing strategies thoroughly during the planning phase is essential to ensure you’re both on the same page for a safe landing. It’s easy to see why it won the Spiel des Jahres award—Sky Team is very accessible, making it a game everyone can enjoy, and it offers a fresh, innovative take on familiar mechanisms.
We had a blast playing Sky Team. The initial scenarios were fairly straightforward, likely helped by our previous cooperative gaming experience. As we progressed to more challenging scenarios, things got dicey—pun intended—until we finally crashed in a windy scenario because we couldn’t get the flaps up in time. Back to the flight simulator for us!
If you’re itching to try out the game yourself, you can find it on BoardGameArena here.
📝 Disclaimer: We received a copy of the game from the publisher, 999 Games.
