by W. Eric Martin

If you're a fan of The Mind, play Take Time. Everyone else, read on...

The co-operative game Take Time by Alexi Piovesan, Julien Prothière, and Libellud does a fantastic job of embedding gameplay in a coherent thematic framework. During the game, you take turns playing numbered cards to create a clock, but a wonky clock in which numbers don't ascend sequentially. More importantly, you don't know whether the clock will work until you reveal all of the played cards at game's end.

Take Time includes forty levels of gameplay, and for each level you lay out a mock clockface divided into six segments, with one or more segments placing conditions on the players: you must play X cards here; you must play here first; the sum of cards played here must fall between Y and Z, etc.

Players receive a hand of three, four, or six cards depending on the player count, with the deck containing 24(!) cards divided into twelve day cards and twelve night, each numbered 1-12(!).

As you can see in the image below, the day/night nature of a card is visible from its reverse side, and before you start playing, you can discuss plans for how you think you should tackle this level based on the day/night balance of cards dealt. No looking at the cards yet, mind you, and once you start the game, you can't talk about cards in hand.

Once you're set to go, pick up your cards and decide who's going to start, then take turns playing at least one card in each segment until all twelve cards have been played. You can play a few cards face up during the game, and you decide on your own when you think it's valuable to do this.

Playing at cafés - good;playing at umbrella tables - not quite as good
I adore this type of communication between players in co-operative games, speaking through gameplay with a quickly played face-down card meaning something different from a sigh issued ahead of a clearly indecisive play — and if that sigh is accompanied by a face-up card, then that gives us a sense of the pickle of a hand you're facing. What do you actually have in hand? No idea, but we'll find out.

With two players, you get a hand of four cards, then after playing two cards, you pick up the remaining two, which nicely approximates the challenge of a game with more players, both of you playing around this phantom that will inject itself into play one-third of the way in.

Take Time presents players with a decent mix of deduction and vibes. You know what you've played and what's face up, so you can estimate the sum of this segment or which night cards have yet to be played, but often you're uncertain what's best to do since you don't know what remains to be played. Only half of the deck is in play, after all, so even when you replay a level, you're facing a new challenge.

Should you fail, you get to turn an additional card face up on the next go, with this boost and the knowledge of what went wrong ideally transforming individual numbers into a working clock so that you can advance to the next level. I've now played 28 times over three sessions with two or three players on a review copy from Libellud, and I'm excited to introduce this game to more people as it creates the same "Can you believe that worked?!" feeling of The Mind that I've enjoyed sharing with others.

For gameplay examples, watch this video, which features a full playthrough of level #1 and optional teasers for the next three levels:

Youtube Video