The Austrian jury has spoken, and the big winner is a quiet little co-op. Take Time, a cooperative card game from French publisher Libellud, has taken the Spiel der Spiele, Austria's game of the year award, for 2026. If you have ever enjoyed the hushed, read-your-partner tension of a good co-op, this is one to put on the radar.
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Set up your group for freeTake Time is the work of designers Alexi Piovesan and Julien Prothiere, and it comes from the studio behind Dixit and Mysterium, so it has real pedigree in games about intuition and shared understanding. It plays 2 to 4, runs about 30 to 45 minutes and is pitched at ages 10 and up. Across 40 escalating challenges, you and your table lay twelve cards face down around a clock face, following rules that shift from round to round, with talking allowed only in strictly limited doses. The jury called it a "collective odyssey" where group cohesion matters more than any single clever play.
The award, handed out by Austria's game critics at the end of June, is a respected mark of quality for family and group games, sitting alongside Germany's better known Spiel des Jahres. Take Time had already picked up the Swiss Gamers Award in 2025, so this is its second continental honour. It saw off strong competition, with Piatnik's building game Project Skyline and HeidelBAR's tile-layer Railroad Tiles also up for the main prize.
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Find events near youFor UK groups, the good news is that Take Time has been on shelves since October 2025, so there is no waiting around. If your regular co-op night has worn a groove in Pandemic and The Crew, this is a fresh, gorgeous-looking way to test how well your table really reads each other. Fancy giving it a run? Round up your group for a game night.
Sources: Wuerfelreich | YouGame | Libellud
