There are hardly any nicer moments for families than playing evenings together with a board game that not only challenges, but also produces a laugh or two. In the case of finger off! von Zoch's failed answers cause a lot of malicious laughter on the part of the family members, who either stand out for their good general knowledge or complete ignorance. Hands off! is a classic knowledge game, but with a sophisticated game system it ensures crackling high tension. Who likes Finger Weg! can find and whether dad should like to pay the acquisition costs of the family board game, you can read in the following test on Finger Weg! Have fun!


General education helps, so does happiness

Attention high Voltage. Admittedly, the design of the packaging suggests an electronics kit rather than a board game, but Hands off! is exactly that: A classic knowledge game about curious questions. As in other games of this type, there are also Hands off! various categories of knowledge available. The topics range from sports to art and culture to classics such as geography. So a lot of special knowledge is asked and the family board game is much fairer. Life experience and a good portion of general education help, but are no guarantee of victory Hands off! This is due to the sometimes extremely strange questions that ask everything but no basic knowledge. Or do you know (without googling!) What the national flag of Zambia looks like and whether a bird is depicted on this flag?

The main tool for fellow players is the "switchboard" into which the current card is inserted. The highlight Hands off!: The knowledge questions are not answered individually by each player in order to have to listen to stupid sayings in the event of a wrong answer, but the entire player round is active for each of the 8 answers. The goal is to stay in the game until someone gets the wrong answer that they should have stayed away from. at Hands off! 8 answers are given on each answer board: 7 correct ones and one wrong one. Of course, you shouldn't choose the latter if you want to win. In detail, a game round proceeds as follows: The active player chooses a card and puts it in the circuit board so that no one (not even himself) can see the lightning bolt as a marker for the wrong answer. He is also the one who initially gives his assessment of the first possible answer. To do this, he uses his wooden marker and places it face up in front of him either with the free space (answer is correct) or with the lightning bolt (this is the wrong answer: hands off!). The other players then follow in turn and make their decisions. Now the active player reveals the slider and reveals the result. For each "survived" round, the players get points. If markers are placed incorrectly, the respective players are eliminated until the end of the current round, but receive points. If you make it to the end of the switchboard, you get a whopping 10 counters. As many rounds are played as there are players, since everyone must have acted once as an active player.

Hands off! relies on a mixed concept of tough knowledge game and entertaining moves of a funny family game. Some of the questions are so strange (here it remains spoiler-free!) That the right answers sometimes put a smile on the face of even the greatest nerd. With solid general knowledge you can of course rule out some possible answers, but there is always enough room for tension, as even true experts in a field falter and are unexpectedly struck by lightning. A wonderful goodie is the enclosed solution booklet, which makes you smile because of the explanations. A great idea, because no question, no matter how strange, remains unanswered and the whole family learns a lot of new and sometimes wonderfully useless knowledge with which one can really be smart-ass at the next annual celebration of the golf club. In any case, rate fans will be royally entertained.

Infobox

Number of players: 3 to 8 players
Age: from 12 years
Playing time: 45 to 60 minutes
Difficulty: easy
Long-term motivation: low

Publisher: Zoch  
Year of publication: 2013 
Author: Peter Wichmann
Language: German
Cost: 25 Euro

Summary

 Hands off! von Zoch is an exciting knowledge game that is perfect for family game evenings together. The starting age of 12 is of course due to the fact that a healthy level of general knowledge is not only helpful, but Hands off! makes it really worth playing. Of course, you can also guess, and you even have to do that sometimes, but the family board game degenerates into a pure game of chance, which provides significantly less entertainment. The fact that the knowledge game is not unfair for children and that the young players can measure themselves against the adults is due to the good mix of questions. Some questions are so specific that guessing rounds creates a sizzling tension; other questions, on the other hand, are aimed primarily at younger players.

Hands off! is an exciting title that motivates. At least until you know all the questions and have stored the wrong answers in your memory - then you have reached the point where Hands off! loses its charm. However, this should take a few weeks or even months.