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Award-winning co-op game The Crew turned into a choose-your-own-adventure style book

Silence in the space library.

The Crew, a co-op board game about space exploration, is being turned into a choose-your-own-adventure style book.

Entitled Die Crew: Die Rückkehr zum 9. Planeten – or in English, The Crew: Return to Planet 9 – the book will take readers through a story based on a series of co-op games that take place in outer space. The story of Return to Planet 9 sees the team of The Crew coming back to the mysteriously undocumented Planet 9, whose exploration was the goal of the first entry in the board game series.

In the adventure book, readers will be stepping into the space boots of the crew of the spaceship Galathea as they find themselves embroiled in yet more mysteries. After they receive a distress call originating from a colony on Mars, the Galathea crew will find themselves braving “risky spacewalks, rivalry among astronauts and tricky problems to solve.”

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Dicebreaker play The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine.

As the unseen puppeteers behind the Galathea crew, the readers of Return to Planet 9 will be responsible for making various pulse-pounding decisions. The adventure book contains over 150 choices for readers to make, with each one having effects that might range from the smallest change to the biggest consequences. As readers progress through the story, their choices will change the trajectory of the story and potentially the entire outcome.

Similarly to the space-themed board game the book is based on, Return to Planet 9 enables multiple people to participate in the experience – with readers able to make their decisions together. Alternatively, readers can tackle the spider-web of choices alone.

The Crew: Return to Planet 9 was written by Andrew Ulich, an actor and author. Illustrations for the book were made by Folko Streese, who has also created the artwork for other adventure books based on tabletop titles such as Adventure Games – Books: The Academy of the Wardens of Time – which is adapted from the Adventure Games series – and the illustrations for board games like Allie Gator.

Cover image for YouTube video
A collection of the best co-op board games available.

Kosmos is the company responsible for releasing The Crew: Return to Planet 9, with the studio previously publishing the board game series the book is based on, as well as other tabletop titles such as two-player board game Lost Cities.

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine is a co-op game that has players working together to discover the location of a new planet. In the game, players attempt to complete various missions by playing cards from their hand in a ‘trick-taking’ style game, with the highest numbered card of the current suit winning the trick. However, players cannot communicate what they have in their hand with the others, meaning that they need to anticipate what to play and when. The Quest for Planet Nine received the Kennerspiel des Jahres – or the highest accolade an expert game can receive – in 2020.

As of now, The Crew: Return to Planet 9 is only set to be released in the German language, with an English language version yet to be confirmed. The German language book will be released at a retail price of €20 (£17/$20).

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About the Author
Alex Meehan avatar

Alex Meehan

Senior Staff Writer

After writing for Kotaku UK, Waypoint and Official Xbox Magazine, Alex became a member of the Dicebreaker editorial family. Having been producing news, features, previews and opinion pieces for Dicebreaker for the past three years, Alex has had plenty of opportunity to indulge in her love of meaty strategy board games and gothic RPGS. Besides writing, Alex appears in Dicebreaker’s D&D actual play series Storybreakers and haunts the occasional stream on the Dicebreaker YouTube channel.

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