Keep Flying: Sky Team Campaigns, Online Play, and Local Pilots

You have learned the cockpit, taught it, and landed. The question now is how to keep Sky Team fresh. A cooperative game for two has no rankings to climb, so its challenge comes from the game itself, from new seats, and from new co-pilots.

Fly the Flight Log as a campaign

Every scenario in the Flight Log has a circle in its top corner. The booklet asks you to check it off when you land that scenario. That small instruction turns 21 flights into a campaign you can play over weeks.

A few ways to run it:

• Go in color order. Clear every Routine Landing, then Exceptional Conditions, then Elite Pilots Only, and save Heroic Landing for last.
• Stay until you land. Do not move on after a crash. Fly the same scenario again until the circle is checked.
• Keep a log. Write the date and the number of tries beside each circle. Watching a scenario fall from six tries to one is its own reward.

Swap seats

The Pilot and Co-Pilot have different jobs. The Pilot owns the Landing Gear and Brakes and has one Radio space. The Co-Pilot owns the Flaps and has two. A crew that always sits the same way learns half the game.

After you land a scenario, swap seats and fly it again. You will read your partner’s dice differently once you have had to place them yourself.

The Real-Time module

For crews who find the silence comfortable, the Flight Log’s Real-Time module adds a 60-second timer, started right after the roll. When time runs out, the round ends. Any dice not placed are ignored, and a missing Axis or Engines die still crashes the plane.

It is a good final step: try it on scenarios you have already landed, so the only new thing is the clock. The Heroic Landings lesson has a plan for it.

Free scenarios and the expansion

When the booklet is done, the publisher’s Sky Team downloads page has Ready to Play scenarios that remix the airports in the box. The Turbulence expansion adds 20 more scenarios, and the scenarios and modules lesson covers both.

Play online

Sky Team is on Board Game Arena, and the publisher links to it from its own Sky Team page. It runs in a browser, has a tutorial, and the silence takes care of itself, since there is no table to tap. It is a good way to keep flying with a co-pilot in another city, or to meet new ones.

Online, the table chat is your briefing. Agree on the round’s plan there before the roll, and keep to the same rule as at home: talk about the plane, never the dice.

Is there competitive Sky Team?

Not in the usual sense. You play against the game, together, and no official tournament circuit turned up in our research. Its recognition has come from awards instead: the Spiel des Jahres jury named it the 2024 Game of the Year.

If you want a measure of skill, use the Flight Log. Landing Heroic scenarios on the first try, with the timer running, is about as hard as Sky Team gets.

Find new co-pilots

Sky Team teaches in five minutes and plays in about 20, which makes it a strong game to bring to an open game night.

• Your local game store. Many run open nights. Ask the staff whether two-player games get a table.
• Your library or community center. Many host board game meetups, and short games like this one fit between longer ones.
• Start your own. Our guide on how to start a play group walks through it.
• Date night. Sky Team is a strong pick for couples; our Indianapolis board game date night guide suggests it for established couples.

If you are near Indianapolis, join the Indianapolis list for first word on local learn-to-play nights as The Ludarium grows.

Bring someone new

The best way to keep Sky Team fresh is to teach it. Lesson 2 has the five-minute script and the teach sheet fits on one page. A new co-pilot reads your dice in ways your usual partner never did, and you learn the game again from the other seat.

That is the end of the course. You can set up, teach, fly the approach, land, put odds on your dice, read your partner, climb the Flight Log to its Heroic Landings, and find new pilots. The game is the reason. The person in the other seat is the point.