Take Time

01Game presentation

Take Time offers a series of cooperative events. Before looking at your cards, you discuss a plan. Then, you play silently around a clock: you have to guess how the hidden cards of others are added to yours.

The overall difficulty is difficult. The first challenges guide learning, but coordination and constraints are reinforced. This chapter follows the Libellud game released in 2025, without the Mirage extension. The rules specific to each event remain printed in its case: they are part of the material, like the effects written on the cards of another game.

02Equipment requirements

• 24 cards: 12 Solar and 12 Lunar, numbered from 1 to 12 in each color.
• 3 reminder chips, suitable for 2, 3 and 4 players; 3 bonus chips.
• 10 Chapter cases, each with 4 clocks and its rule sheet: 40 proofs.
• 1 needle and 1 case Regrets, empty at the start.
• 1 Renaissance case containing 1 clock, 1 second needle and 6 tokens. Keep it closed until scheduled.

The backs indicate the colour of the cards, not their value. The original material is necessary; the diagrams of the book do not replace the forty clocks.

03The purpose of the game

Collectively place 12 cards around the six quarters of a clock, respecting all its constraints. Each district must receive at least one card. Starting from the needle and then in the clockwise direction, the sums must be increasing in the broad sense: equality between two quarters is permitted.

04Preparing the game

1. For the first session, remove the four clocks from chapter 1 and keep their order. Return the first clock to the center.
2. Place the sheet of the chapter next to it: it explains the local symbols. Take the reminder token of your staff and the three Bonuses face down. The moving needle will be used from Chapter 3 when the tests ask.
3. Shuffle the 24 cards and deal 12 in total without looking at them: 3 each with 4 players, 4 each with 3 players, or 6 each with 2 players.
4. On the other hand, separate your 6 cards into a set of 4 and a set of 2, always hidden. Keep the other cards out of the test.
5. Don't look at your hands until the end of the discussions. The backs and therefore the colors remain visible.

05How to play?

Discussion: preparing a method

Read the constraints of the clock and its neighborhoods. A condition may impose a number of cards, a color, a sum range or the order of certain poses. A central rule may apply to all neighborhoods; several rules may apply to the same neighborhood.

You can announce a method related to the actions of the game: reserve an area for small values, predict who supports a neighborhood, decide that a large number should start. You don't know your values yet. Codes outside the game, for example scratching your ear to announce an 8, are forbidden.

When you're done, take your cards. A person who looks at his or hers before the end immediately stops participating in the discussion. As soon as everyone has looked, we move on to the silent pose.

Set: one map each, in silence

Anyone can start without consulting the others: this person sets a map in front of a neighborhood. Then the turn goes left and continues in the clockwise direction. On each turn, put a card with your hand on the chosen neighborhood. Do not move the cards already set to arrange the totals.

Decal the superimposed cards so that their number and colors are readable. You can look secretly at your own cards already laid, but not those of others. The rule allows to verify information already public, for example who had laid a card, without communicating a hidden value or advising a pose.

The Reminder token indicates how many cards you can play face up collectively. This help does not belong to each person separately: you share the quota. Visible cards are chosen at the time of play; they can be distributed among players. They are not negotiated during pose.

With two players, start with the group of 4 only. After both players have played 2 cards, add your set of 2 reserved cards to your hand without looking at them first. Continue normally until all twelve cards have been played.

Resolution: Counting in the right order

Reveal maps from the area indicated by the needle, then clockwise, without changing their order. For each district, add the values of all its maps, Solar and Lunaires together unless special rule to the contrary.

Check: at least one map per district; sum greater than or equal to that of the previous quarter; sum greater than 24; all local constraints. The limit of 24 does not apply to the first three clocks in Chapter 1, as their central symbol reminds us.

A marked constraint for laying must be respected when playing; it cannot be repaired during counting. A resolution constraint is verified at the end. The sheets of the chapters distinguish these two moments: read them before any new clock.

Try again, move forward or set aside

If everything is right, put the clock together and move on to the next one. After the four of a chapter, open the next chapter. Turn the Bonuses face down after a success.

After a failure, return a Bonus: it allows an additional visible card during the next attempts of this clock. The Bonuses already returned cumulate, up to the three available. Mix all the cards and redistribute 12 cards to start again: you don't replay the same known hand.

You can skip a difficult test. Put the Bonuses face down, place its clock in the Regrets case and continue. At the beginning of a next session, the Regrets clocks can be placed above the current chapter, in the chosen order.

06An example of a game

On a clock without local constraint used here to explain the calculation, the final sums are 4, 9, 9, 15, 20 and 23 from the needle. They follow the order: 9 then 9 is allowed. The six quarters have at least one map and no total exceeds 24.

But if the third quarter has to contain exactly two cards and receives three, the test fails despite its good sums. We have to check the local constraints in addition to the general order.

On four, Alice has a great value that she would like to place towards the end. She hesitates because two hidden cards are already placed in this neighborhood. She chooses to use one of the authorized visible poses to make her own contribution readable. She shows neither the rest of her hand nor a sign indicating the value of a hidden card.

Enlarge ↗

07How can I win?

A test is won only if all its rules are fulfilled. You succeed or fail together; no one scores against its partners. You can stop a session after the number of events desired and keep your progress.

The main course is successful when the 40 races are over. After trying all the tests, successful or not, the booklet asks to open Renaissance. Then apply the instructions of this case and its sheet: its material is a follow-up to discover, not a condition to invent before opening. No individual equality exists.

08Errors to avoid

• Discuss after looking at values.
• Count values of isolated maps instead of amounts per district.
• To prohibit a equality of sums: it is permitted.
• Give each individual its own quota of visible cards.
• Keep the same distribution after a failure or forget a local rule.

09Tips for starting

Before looking at your cards, set a simple strategy rather than a plan for each possible value. The colors visible on the back help to distribute certain constraints. After a failure, look for what information was missing and what pose could have made it understandable, without creating a prohibited code.