Sky Team review: "Packs a lot of strategy and fun into a small box"

Luc Rémond’s Spiel des Jahres-winning board game Sky Team will give you a new appreciation for just how tricky it is to land a plane, or maybe exacerbate your fear of flying. There are so many ways for the two people taking on the role of pilot and co-pilot to fail, whether crashing into other planes in the air, overshooting the airport, or failing to properly deploy their landing gear — and that’s when they’re flying in good weather!

Luckily, Sky Team eases you into the challenges by using one rulebook to teach all the basics and then a second to parse out additional rules so you can add on complexity. You might get cocky after a few good landings, but having to track kerosene or land on an icy runway will humble you quickly. The good thing is scenarios only take about 20 minutes, so if you fail you can easily try again.

Sky Team is the rare game designed specifically as a board game for 2 players, and its emphasis on trust and cooperation make it an ideal game for couples. It packs a lot of strategy and fun into a small box, meaning you can even carry one of the best board games with you on a trip.

Features & design

• A limited-communication co-op game
• Make the best of your dice rolls
• Start with a basic board, then add extra components
• Highly portable for playing on the go

Sky Team packs a lot into a small footprint, making it easy to add to your shelf or even your suitcase. First time setup is made easier by clearly demarking with little trash bin symbols which pieces just need to be punched out and discarded to make room for the various tracking pieces you’ll actually be using. There are separate sets of dice for the pilot and co-pilot, and the board clearly color coordinates which dice can be played where. The screens used to hide your dice rolls double as player aids, complete with a note about how the passengers burst into applause should you smoothly land. (Presumably a lot of screaming ensues if you don’t).

Rather than bombard you with too many rules for your first play, the game has one book you need to read immediately that offers all the ways you’ll crash the plane if you mess up. After the starting scenario, you can delve into a second book that adds complexity. Each scenario is based on a real airport with its own challenges, and each runway card is two-sided, so you can try the same landing with harder difficulty once you feel like you’ve mastered it. The flight log rulebook also doubles as a way to track which scenarios you’ve played. If you manage to beat all of them, publisher Scorpion Masqué has still more scenarios offered as a free print and play on its website.

The components are simple, but evocative. There are little wooden planes to represent other aircraft that can get in your way and little wooden coffee cups that can be used to take the edge off a bad die roll. The main board evokes a cockpit control panel with a centerpiece you manipulate to indicate the plane moving on its axis and switches you flip to reveal satisfying green lights as you deploy the equipment you’ll need to land. There are extra mini boards used when incorporating new rules like ice brakes or tail wind, but none of them take up much table space, making Sky Team a remarkably compact game for its level of strategy.

Gameplay

• High replayability
• Manage numerous prerogatives with limited turns
• Plays quickly, so can fit in a game any time

Sky Team puts two players in the role of pilot and co-pilot who must work together to land a plane at a variety of airports with unique challenges. Starting their descent at 6,000 feet and dropping altitude, each turn players roll a set of six-sided dice that they’ll need to use to set the speed of the plane, manage the angle of approach, radio the control tower to get other aircraft out of the way, and deploy their landing gear. The trick is that players can’t talk to each other once the dice have been rolled and don’t know what their teammate is working with.

Players can chat a bit before each round to plan out strategy. The angle is determined by the difference between the dice the pilot and co-pilot play while the speed is the sum of the two dice. Sometimes you want to try to go slow to get your altitude lower and brakes ready for a short runway, and sometimes speed is important to avoid high traffic areas. Having the same die for an angle and keeping the plane steady is usually good, but in more advanced scenarios, you’ll have to constantly adjust your axis to get around obstacles.

Luck certainly plays a major factor, especially given that deploying landing gear requires placing specific die numbers iteratively over the course of several rounds. But there are a few mechanics to recover, like reroll tokens you earn over the course of a game and coffee which can be used to adjust a die up or down. Figuring out when to use these limited resources and when to just deal with the dice you’ve rolled is a key part of the game’s strategy.

There are plenty of ways to lose in just the base game, but Sky Team’s numerous scenarios keep upping the difficulty by adding in extra elements. The slow curve of new mechanics helps you get familiar with things like tracking kerosene use or training interns, though the difficulty jump that some of these introduce can be quite steep. Some scenarios are meant to be played on a timer, which takes the stress of the game to a whole different level.

Should you buy Sky Team?

If you have a friend or partner you like teaming up with, Sky Team is one of the best two player experiences out there. It’s quick to play but provides a massive amount of replayability thanks to a huge variety of scenarios with slowly escalating rule complexity. It also is conveniently small, making it easy to take on a trip.

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How we tested Sky Team

We played Sky Team multiple times to get the best possible sense for its mechanics and replayability, along with trying the different difficulty levels on offer. To find out more, so our guide to how we test board games. Alternatively, check in with the wider 12DOVE reviews policy. 

For more recommendations, don't miss our guide to the best cooperative board games. It's worth checking out these must-have board games for adults, too.