The Silent Cockpit – Sky Team Review

One of the more recent tropes in cooperative games is the idea that players can’t talk to each other.

This removes the alpha gamer issue and also can make the game more interesting.

Sometimes, thematically, it makes no sense, but you can’t have everything.

Try landing a plane without talking!

That’s what Sky Team does, and actually does it fairly effectively.

Sky Team was designed by Luc Rémond with artwork by Eric Hibbeler and Adrien Rives. It was published by Le Scorpion Masque in 2023.

Sky Team is a 2-player game about, as I said, landing an airplane at a busy airport and sometimes in nasty conditions. It’s a dice-rolling and placement game with one added caveat.

Yes, that’s right. The two players can’t talk. At least not during the dice-placement phase.

You can talk plenty before rolling the dice.

Let’s take a look at it.

There are a bunch of different airport possibilities, and then there’s an easier side and a harder side.

As is usual with airports, there are lots of planes around.

Did you know airports had planes?

Me neither!

Players are going to be rolling their four dice and then, taking turns, placing one die on a space that’s designated for either the pilot (blue) or the copilot (orange).

By the end of the round, one die has to be placed on the Axis and one on the Engine, but otherwise you’re free to place anywhere that the number can go.

Everything on the control panel must be optimal before you get to the landing, and there are lots of ways you can crash (or overshoot).

This dice placement mechanic is great because depending on where you place, different things happen.

When both dice are placed in the Axis area (determining how crooked the plane is, and you don’t want to be upside down), you adjust the axis based on the dice difference.

If the copilot placed a 4 and the pilot placed a 3? The axis turns clockwise one space toward even.

If you pitch too much to either side, you hit the red X and you crash.

Under the Axis is the Engine, which determines your speed.

Those dice are added together and compared to the number track just above them, where the blue and orange markers are. If the total of the dice are below where the blue marker is, you don’t move!

Which can be good if you’re already above the runway.

Between the two markers moves the airport up one space.

To the right of the orange marker moves the airport up 2 spaces.

Which is great, if there aren’t any planes in either spot, like above.

Placing any die on a radio (copilot can do this twice, the pilot can do it once) will remove planes at the same distance.

So place a 2 above would remove a plane from the second space (where there are currently three).

What makes Sky Team intense is the timer on the right. That moves down after all of the dice have been placed and then you start a new round.

The airport and the timer have to be in sync at the end, so the airport and the runway (the top spaces of both) are together immediately in front of you.

So if you’ve moved fast, clearing planes and bringing the airport closer to you, but you still have 2 turns left, you’d better hope you don’t move forward in those two turns or you’ll overshoot and lose the game.

This is where the “no-talking” comes in, because you can’t coordinate to the point of saying “I have a 4 and a 6 left. Which die do you want me to place so that we don’t move when you place your die?”

Can’t do that.

Before rolling dice, you can say “look, the airport is right there, we can’t really afford to move much. Try to place a low die in the Engine space.”

But after the dice are rolled?

No words!

This makes little thematic sense, as the crew in the cockpit should be coordinating everything they do.

But it wouldn’t be much of a game if you could talk about your dice, would it?

So yeah, while the theme is there (and superb) for the actual landing the plane, getting all the flaps and brakes and everything set, and getting the planes out of the way (though isn’t that the air traffic controller’s job?), don’t look to this game for thematic consistency when it comes to not talking.

It’s not there.

But that’s ok!

The game is tense, over very quickly (20 minutes tops), and it has scenarios and modules coming out of all of its orifices.

Scenarios can make the game harder, like adding a fuel leak that must be managed each turn.

The fuel leak gauge is on the left, going down equal to the value of the die placed there (or 6 if no die is placed). If it reaches the X, BOOM!!!!!

Or adding interns that can be used in place of a die, but all of them must be used by the time you land.

Or even landing in icy conditions or facing a hard wind.

Icy conditions make braking harder, so it requires 8 dice instead of 3.

Some scenarios will actually have one or more assistance cards to make things easier.

There are so many great scenarios that we ended up playing this four times in one sitting, just to make things harder and see how we did.

If you’re into quick 2-player games, you can’t really go wrong with Sky Team.

It’s kinda weird thematically, but mechanically and in intensity, it’s a marvelous game.

Now go land that plane!

(This review was written after 4 plays)