Review: Sky Team
Introduction
Sky Team is a cooperative dice placement that sees two players attempting to land a plane.
One player plays the Captain, and the other First Officer. And for some reason, despite sitting directly next to each other in the cockpit, they never talk to each other. Yep, Sky team is one of those Cooperative games where you just have to stare at each other and hope you are both thinking the same thing. Basic economy seating for the Alpha Gamers out there.
Players land their plane by ensuring several conditions are met:
First, the plane must be level while landing. If it ever tips too far left or right you crash the plane and kill all passengers aboard.
Second, the plane must maintain an appropriate approach speed. Too fast and you'll overshoot the tarmac; too slow and you'll crash land. In either scenario you crash the plane and kill all passengers aboard.
Third, players must ensure that air traffic control clears the airspace. If they don't you crash the plane (into another plane) and kill all passengers aboard.
Fourth, the Captain must ensure that the wheels are extended before the plane lands. If they don't you crash the plane and kill all passengers aboard.
Fifth, the First Officer must control air speed by controlling the flaps. If they don't, you crash the plane and kill all passengers aboard.
And lastly, once on the tarmac, the Captain must apply the brakes appropriately to bring the plane to a stop. You'll never believe this, but if they don't, YOU CRASH THE PLANE AND KILL ALL PASSENGERS ABOARD.
So, you know, no pressure...
How to Fly a Plane for Dummies
OK. So I think I've made it clear what happens when things go wrong. But how do players work together to ensure the plane lands safely? Like real pilots: using mostly luck.
Gameplay is incredibly simple: Each player secretly rolls their four dice, and then each player alternates turns placing one (and only one) of their dice. Over each turn, both Captain and First Officer must commit two of their four dice placements to the following mandatory actions:
Power the engines: Players add up the values of their combined dice, which dictates how fast the plane moves this round.
Keep the plane's axis level: The plane tilts the difference between each player's dice. Tilt the plane too far and players lose the game (crashing the plane and killing all passengers aboard).
For the other two dice, players can perform any of the following actions:
Use the radio (any player): Remove other planes from your flight path
Deploy the landing gear (Captain only): Slow the plane down
Extend the flaps (First Officer only): Slow the plane down
Apply the brakes (Captain only): Bring the plane to a stop once it lands
Concentrate (any player): Adjust dice later in the game
Even while writing those actions down, they don’t seem particularly interesting, and individually they aren't to be honest. But where Sky Team really shines is in each dice placement’s ability to interact (both in a positive and negative sense) with each other action, and how each individual dice placement communicates (or miscommunicates) something to the other player.
Each dice placement affects the future actions of both Captain and First Officer, and since players can't communicate verbally during the round, the order the dice are placed can also imply a message.
To provide a single example let's look at the Radio action. Players may place dice to remove incoming air traffic from the flight path. Placing a die value 4 will remove a plane 4 spaces away. But perhaps your partner only has dice with value 3 or lower. So, they place their dice on the engine spot first. If you place your next dice on the corresponding engine spot, the plane will move forward, bringing the planes closer and allowing your partner to more easily remove them with their dice. But, it also brings you closer to a game ending crash. And if your partner has higher value dice left? Now the planes are too close to remove and suddenly you’ll need a good roll next turn to clear the air. Communication through dice placement is vital to success, especially once you graduate to the higher difficulty levels.
Turbulence
Speaking of higher difficulty, Sky Team (already a bargain at $30USD) comes with multiple modules that ratchet up the tension and intensity of the core gameplay. These include:
Wind: Helps crash your plane by moving it too fast too quickly.
Kerosene: Helps crash your plane by not having enough of it.
Ice: I’ll let you guess how this one crashes the plane.
Interns: Wait, what?! Yep, if you don’t train all the interns by the time the plane lands you (they?) CRASH THE PLANE AND KILL ALL PASSENGERS ABOARD.
And coming soon: The Door Falls off your Plane Expansion I guess…
In addition to the modules, Sky team also includes 10 double sided airports of varying difficulty. These airports add interesting scenarios, such as adding extra planes to the sky mid turn, demanding specific axis tilts when moving, and descending quickly on a short approach.
One minor caveat here. As the difficulty increases the reliance on rolling well increases. Much of the challenge of the higher difficulty airports comes from the need to use the same amount of dice to cover more actions. This simply means less chances to adjust and reroll dice. Those that don’t like a high aspect of luck on their cooperative games might find that Sky Team has a ceiling for them. You’ll lose often from rolling (and then rerolling) badly. If that doesn't sound like it's for you, then you might be better off sticking with other cooperative games like The Crew or Spirit Island.
Fun Factor
One of my highlights of this year was playing Sky Team with an actual pilot, working our way through all the airports and modules. It was great to play the role of make-believe First Officer, and actually made me wish I’d considered pilot as a career choice. If that’s not high praise, I don't know what is.
At the same time, this was a game I was able to enjoy with my wife as well, who is more of an entry level gamer. Sky Team is an incredibly versatile game, something that is rare to find these days.
You can tell the design team put a lot of passion into this project. The theme oozes through every aspect of the game. I almost never buy games that are on BGA anymore, and especially not games that come to BGA, an online board gaming platform, so quickly after release (as Sky Team did, although that's a rant for another day), so it's a testament to this game that I bought it despite its online availability and in spite of several friends in my gaming group owning it already. It’s just a game I want sitting on my shelf.
Final Verdict
✅ Simple & easy to learn rules
✅ Pilot approved
✅ Engaging gameplay puzzle
✅ Adjustable difficulty
❌ More difficult modules & airports might lean too much on luck for some
Rating: 9/10
Sky Team was purchased from Millennium Games in Rochester, NY. No review copy was provided.
