Toys > Hanabi
December 30th, 2021
Hanabi is one of my favourite card games. It’s got a lot of good points:
- It’s a cooperative game - all the humans versus the game itself - which removes the stress of player-versus-player competitiveness.
- The game owner will not dominate the other players, both because it’s co-operative and involves some chance.
- There’s little setup required and the rules are easy to understand.
- The game feels different depending on the size of the group playing.
- There are suggested game variations, so it has longevity.
Writing about games is a bit like writing about sex - I can describe the mechanics, but you won’t understand why it’s fun until you participate. With that said: in Hanabi you see everyone’s cards but your own, and must work as a group to arrange them in order by colour. Each turn you can give people a little information about their cards, but there are limitations; not everyone will have enough information to always play 100% safe. You’ll have to make some educated guesses about what to play.
Programmers seem to find Hanabi particularly compelling. I once worked with an intern who got consumed by the game after we played it one evening. “I like to break games,” he said, and devised an ‘optimal’ strategy. If you ask most people what they know about their hand, they’ll say something like “I know this card is red, and this is a 2 or 3”. Kevin was a robot: “I have a not-red not-blue 3, a not-3 not-red,” and so on. But even with this perfect information his game-breaking scheme couldn’t account for the capricious decisions of other players, or their forgetfulness, or their lack of perfect information & rationality. The game remained unbroken.
I have a couple of suggested house rules for you to try:
- Strictly speaking, the rules forbid giving information except when spending an information token on your turn. But I think it’s fair to allow asking “what do you know about your hand?”. Don’t correct them, but they can share what they know.
- According to the rules, the game ends one turn after the draw pile is exhausted. But if you haven’t messed up yet - if a perfect score is still possible - the players can make an all-or nothing pact and keep playing. No more scoring: you either win or lose.
Available from Gameshack ($13), 401 Games ($10), or MeepleMart ($10). Buy on Amazon UK, Amazon CA, or Amazon US.