Test bench: Sky Team

Chu left on QuébecAir, Transworld, Nord-East, Eastern, Western…

It is with these legendary words of Lindbergh by Robert Charlebois that we take off today, not on QuébecAir but on the white wings of Sky Team , a cooperative dice placement game for two players, designed by Luc Rémond and published to the Masked Scorpion. I'm super excited to tell you about it because it's a QUEBEC game (it's not that common), but also because it's an EXCELLENT and affordable game. With the holiday season upon us, many of you are looking for gift ideas to please your favorite gamers... Sky Team is a wise choice!

Have you ever dreamed of flying a plane? To take off in a snowstorm in Montreal to land in the heat of Acapulco or Hawaii? To fly over the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben or the Castle of the Bohemian Kings in Prague? So please fasten your seat belt, listen carefully to your flight attendant's safety instructions and remember that smoking is prohibited at any time on board the aircraft. We are ready for takeoff!

In Sky Team, the two players play the pilot and co-pilot of an airliner who must land in one of the 21 scenarios offered in the game box. Collaboration between players will be essential for all travelers to arrive safely at their destination. Matante Monique, who is going to Cayo Coco, is counting on us: we have no room for error! Fortunately, you don't need to have taken a flying course to successfully land this plane. A little communication, a bit of strategy and a touch of luck will be more than enough.

How it works ?

The game recreates the tasks carried out by pilots during a landing. The plane begins the game at an altitude of 6000 feet and descends 1000 feet at the start of each turn. This means that a game of Sky Team lasts 7 turns (the last being altitude 0, or the landing as such). During these seven turns, you will have to keep an eye on the speed of the plane, ensure its stability, deploy the landing gear and wing flaps, prepare the brakes and, above all, communicate regularly with the control tower to avoid collisions with other aircraft flying in the area.

All these actions are accomplished by placing, in turn, dice of different values ​​on the locations provided for this purpose on the game board. As in a real cockpit, the pilot and co-pilot each have exclusive responsibility for certain tasks. , while others are common to both players. Depending on the particularities of each destination, there will be more urgent tasks, others less so. You will simply have to make sure that you have completed the entire landing procedure before hitting the ground.

At the start of the round, we can discuss with our partner the tasks to be accomplished and a general strategy to be deployed. Then, we roll the four dice of our color behind our game screen... and we can never reveal the value of our dice. Communication is therefore limited, as in several other cooperative games ( The Game and The Crew , to name a few). This means that we will have to learn to anticipate the maneuvers of our partner to avoid disasters.

Once the round has started, all communication between players is now prohibited!

Keep both hands on the steering wheel…and on the gear lever!

Of the four dice rolled by the players each turn, two must be devoted to absolutely essential tasks: controlling the horizontal axis of the aircraft (you cannot let go of the controls!) and controlling the plane's reactors (we cannot cut the engines!)

To control the horizontal axis, the difference between the value of the dice placed by the players will determine the behavior of the device. For example, if the pilot (blue player) places a 3 and the co-pilot (orange player) places a 4, the plane will tilt slightly towards the co-pilot's side. The plane can tilt slightly (but not too much!) to one side or the other during its descent, as long as players manage to reestablish a perfect horizontal axis when landing on the last turn.

For their part, the reactors make it possible to cover the distance which separates the aircraft from the airport more or less quickly. For this action, it is the sum of the dice placed by the two players which will determine the speed. Attention ! If the plane moves too quickly, there is a risk of collision if the control tower has not had time to move other aircraft out of the airspace!

Two dice to rule them all...

As pilots devote half (2) of their dice to mandatory actions, each turn they are left with two meager dice to advance the various tasks in the landing procedure.

Both players will be able to devote dice to communicating with the control tower. For each die placed in a communication location, an aircraft located in a space corresponding to the value of the die used is removed from the path. You will have to make sure to remove all the planes that are obstructing our course, otherwise the game will automatically end in a tragic collision!

The pilot (blue player) has sole responsibility for deploying the landing gear and deploying the brakes. To do this, he must assign dice of predetermined value to the provided locations.

For his part, the co-pilot (orange player) must ensure the deployment of the flaps on the ailerons. He must assign dice of the correct value to this task AND in ascending order.

The progressive deployment of the landing gear (blue player) and the flaps (orange player) will have an impact on the speed of the aircraft: the further we advance in the procedure, the less aerodynamic the aircraft, the more difficult it will be to deploy it. move forward quickly!

Finally, it happens, on certain occasions, that a player has a die that he does not know what to do with, either because he has already completed all his tasks, or because the value of the die does not allow him to play on the locations mentioned above. No matter, this die is not lost! Wouldn't it be a good time for a coffee break? By assigning a die to a “coffee” location, we obtain a token which then allows us to modify the value of one of our dice by 1. Sometimes, this little long espresso is the miracle you need to avoid disaster …

And we hit the ground...

In the last turn, when our plane arrives at zero altitude (on the ground), we must have reached the airport (otherwise, we crash in nature!) At the end of this turn, all landing maneuvers must be completed. The plane must be perfectly horizontal, and we must manage to reduce the speed sufficiently for the braking system to immobilize the aircraft. When all these conditions are met, it’s victory! Loud applause from your happy and grateful passengers!

New challenges!

After your first successful landing (in Montreal!), Sky Team invites you to tackle other destinations which notably allow you to add additional modules to the base game:

-Mountainous destinations: you will need to tilt the device correctly during certain turns to go around the mountains before arriving at the airport!

-Unexpected traffic: a black die occasionally adds planes to your route!

-Kerosene: an additional slot will allow the two pilots to manage the aircraft's fuel reserves. You have to make sure you don't run out before you arrive at your destination!

-Trainee: Pilots must supervise a trainee who will help them complete the landing procedure. And like all interns, he can be a valuable support or a terrible nuisance. In any case, the trainee must have completed his internship before the end of the game!

-Winds: strong winds change the speed of your device! This will need to be taken into account to avoid collisions!

-Real time: each game turn must be completed in sixty seconds... for an adrenaline rush!

-Kerosene leak: a leak in the fuel tank requires you to better control the speed of the device to save fuel!

-Ice brakes: the track is icy! Braking will require additional maneuvers!

-Skills: For more difficult scenarios, the game allows you to choose "special powers" which represent the experience and well-developed skills of your pilots. Make good use of it!

So… what do we think?

Well, I must admit that I have a weakness for Sky Team, for very personal reasons: my dad was a plane pilot, and several times I sat on the jump seat (you have to say: “jump seat”) from the cockpit during a landing. I was really fascinated by the apparent complexity of the device's controls, by all those switches and buttons of all colors. Playing Sky Team brings back these memories and these sensations... it's like Proust's madeleine! But even ignoring this positive bias on my part, we must admit that Sky Team is a game which objectively presents excellent qualities: simplicity, fluidity, accessibility, strategy, solidity of the game mechanics... what more could you ask for? ?

WE love…

-The true cooperation needed to play…and win!

-The originality of the theme and the game board

-Simplicity and accessibility: that can be explained in five minutes!

We like less…

-Bad luck which can sometimes make a game impossible (it’s a dice game, after all…)

-The limited number of destinations (but I suspect there will be extensions!)

Sky Team

2 players

20 minutes

14 years and over

-Mast

 

Wanting to get this game? Click right here : https://www.asdesjeux.com/en/products/sky-team-va