Take Time
- Board's Eye View
- 9 hours ago
- 2 min read
Libellud may have titled this game Take Time but it's a cooperative 'limited communication' 2-4 player game that takes very little time to play. At least, that's the case for each individual round of play: designers Alexi Piovesan and Julien Prothiere have come up with a game that offers no less than 40 slightly different challenges, each of which is infinitely replayable.
The basic game is super simple. Players have a hand of cards (6 with two players, 4 with three players and 3 with four players) from a deck made up of 12 solar (light back) cards and 12 lunar (dark backed) cards numbered 1-12. For each round, you have a clock face, and players have to play their cards to locations around the clock so that the total number at each location will be equal or greater than the preceding number. The hand on the clock shows the starting location and some locations around the clock will show some special requirements for particular locations - for example, that only one solar card can be played there or that a location must have exactly three cards.
Players can see the mix of solar and lunar back cards in each other's hands but players aren't allowed to say the numbers they have. And, of course, cards are normally played face down. The idea is that players will be making deductions about what cards others might have and which they've played. In the game's first puzzle board (clock), the first location after the clock hand specifies that it must have a single solar card but there's no requirement for players to play their first card to that location. If, therefore, I play a card there at an early stage of the round then other players will deduce that I must've played a low ranking number.
Depending on how well or badly they have fared on previous rounds, players are allowed to play a certain number of cards face up. Judiciously timed use of this ability can make all the difference between success and failure. And the puzzles step up in difficulty as you work your way through the numerous clockfaces in the box. Without giving away too many spoilers, you can expect to encounter locations that specify that the number there must be within a specified range and that no totals exceed 24...
A few years ago there was some controversy when The Mind (Coiledspring Games) was nominated for the Spiel des Jahres award. Many complained that it wasn't so much a game as a psychology experiment. The core mechanic in Take Time is very similar to that in The Mind in that players are simply guessing or making deductions about how their cards rank in relation to those of other players but Take Time feels much more of a game. It has that addictive 'let's try one more puzzle' quality and players get a satisfying sense of progression moving from one clockface puzzle to the next.
