In the Palm of your Hand

Game overview

Timothée Decroix

Pauline Detraz, Gaël Lannurien, Sabrina Miramon, Tohad

La Boîte de Jeu

≃ $ 32

30 min

2 - 8 players - 10+

Download the rules

The game in video

“In the palm of your hand” is a family board game, where you will help your grandfather (who is not so young anymore) to recall his memories by stimulating his mind through the sense of touch.

What's in the box?

Objects (1 metal coin), 1 shoelace, 4 plastic cubes, 1 wooden cube, 1 rubber dart, 1 ring, 1 spinning top, 1 Velcro, 1 soft cloth, 1 large wooden pawn).

100

Memory cards in tarot format.

Constraint cards (for the advanced version).

Victory point tokens (16 x 1 point, 8 x 3 points).

Bag to store the objects

And what about the rules?

In the game box is a large format rule.

Given the small amount of content in the box, I would have liked the rulebook and the game box to be a little more compact. But the rulebook also features 7 richly illustrated pages.

4 pages of rules,
2 pages for the different game modes (an expert mode, rule modifications for 2 players (which are welcome),
another one for 3 players as well as a last one to play in individual version.

Once you have read the rules (which doesn’t even take 5 minutes), the rulebook provides you with a mini tutorial that will not only allow you to play straight away, but will also introduce you to the different gestures to mime, so as to give you a foretaste of the possibilities the game offers.

After several games, you can try the expert mode which will introduce constrained cards, and tell you what to do or not to do during the “mime a memory” phase.

All right, and how does it play?

: Rocket tokens representing victory points

: Constraint cards for expert mode

: The Memory cards

: The 11 objects in their bag

: I have to make my grandfather guess this memory

: To do this I will mime a paint roller, without touching the hand directly and without saying a word …

: Then I will mime changing the bulb…

: Once the mime is finished, I announce it, and Leon the grandfather, must find the card that I have previously mimed.

You can also throw the objects

What is the purpose of the game?

The game is played in teams of 2 or 3 players.

One member of the team will play the grandfather while another member of the same team will play the child and mime the memory.

At the end of a round of the game, the roles are changed and you start again.

The team that scores the most points at the end of the game has won! In case of a tie, play again 🙂

The setting up

Once the teams are created, 6 Memory cards are handed out to each team (whose members share the same hand).

The deck of Memory Cards is placed faced down next to the objects.

Choose the team that will start playing (we’ll call it the active team) and let’s play!

Playing the game

A game round is composed of 4 phases which are played in this order:

Choose a memory.
Mime the memory.
Interfere with the memory.
Browse through the photo album.
End of the round.

1. Choose a memory

One of the players on the active team is the grandfather. Another player from the same team will play the child. .

The latter will draw a card without showing it to anyone. This card will represent the memory that the child will try to remind the grandfather of.

2. Mime the memory

The child will successively mime 2 memories in the grandfather’s hand: his actions will be visible to all except the grandfather who will keep his eyes closed. Be careful, the child cannot directly touch his grandfather’s hand and must therefore use the objects provided by the game to interact with him.

He can only talk to him to indicate that he is positioning his hand wrongly or that he is going to mime the second memory.

Under no circumstances should the child repeat a mime or test the mime on his own hand beforehand.

3. Interfere with a memory

Once the mime is over, the child announces it, and puts the cards face down. The other team secretly chooses a card from their hand that “looks” like the mimed memory and then picks another one to always have 6 cards in hand. This card will be shuffled into the photo album to try to confuse the grandfather.

Repeat steps 1 to 3 for the second memory.

4. Browse through the photo album

The cards are shuffled and placed face up in front of the grandfather who finally opens his eyes.

He must choose the 2 cards corresponding to the memories that were mimed to him in the right order.

The active team scores 1 point for each Memory card correctly guessed.

The opposing team scores 1 point for each interfering card that was chosen by the grandfather.

In any other case, nobody scores a point.

5. End of round

Clockwise, the next team will become the active team.

The game ends when everyone has played the role of the grandfather.

What about the game's mechanics ?

As you have guessed, the game is relying on one of the 5 senses of the human being: touch.

We have 11 objects that will be able to provide different sensations, as the materials used are quite varied. Although I would have liked to have a little bit more, it allows you not to lose yourself in front of too many choices.

The game plays the card of nostalgia and emotion, we find at the back of the rulebook some souvenir photos with notes from the child.

In addition, if you wish, you can also reconstruct the life of Leon (the grandfather) chronologically in order to discover his history. To do so, place the 100 cards face up in chronological order. And Leon’s life will magically unfold before you from his birth to today.

What I liked... or not

The illustrations

Simply beautiful, they are reminiscent of the cards from games such as Mysterium or Dixit.

Simple rules

Not even 5 minutes to learn the rules, with a tutorial that helps to better understand how to mime. Certainly the rulebook is big, but at least we can say that it is airy and pleasant to browse through.

Different modes available

The game can be played in different player configurations: expert mode, 2 or 3 players, or in individual mode.

The quality of the objects

From my point of view, what is unfortunate is to already have defects on the corners of the cubes after a few parts.
It reminds me of the poorly designed Terraforming Mars cubes (for those who know them).

The much too big box

For the little content it offers, you only have to shake the box before buying it to understand that it contains practically nothing.
It's a bit like a potato chip packet, there are the contents and a lot of air. So please publishers, think about the planet (and the size of my board game collection!).

Conclusion

Score

“In the palm of your hand” will allow you to spend good moments, it’s a good little game to play at the beginning of the evening.

The illustrations, the simplicity of its rules and the fact of using its creativity to mime make its strength.

Though a little confused at the beginning of the game due to its original mechanics to say the least – imagine having to mime an astronaut on the moon just by playing with objects in someone’s hand! – We finally find very quickly ways to make ourselves understood. And it’s quite exhilarating for the team when you’re scoring multiple times!

Fortunately, the game offers an expert mode to counterbalance this kind of situation and at the same time increase the difficulty.

Another thing I liked: the different game modes offered. The 2 players mode works pretty well, it’s fast, funny, and it brings you closer together 😉