With a ridiculous amount of gameplay in a tiny little box, Hanabi is probably the best value game around at the moment.
I've said it before, I'll say it again – card games are bloody brilliant. The fact that there are so many different ways to use those little bits of paper never ceases to amaze me, and when I come across another innovation I always smile a little more. This week I've been positively beaming thanks to the latest game from 7 Wonders designer Antoine Bauza – Hanabi. A quick playing, co-operative card game, it speedily ramps up to a highly challenging affair... and all you have are a bunch of cards.
You and your fellow players assume the roles of designers of a fireworks display - Hanabi is actually Japanese for firework, combining the symbols for 'fire' and 'flower'. It's all very poetic. At the start of play, everyone is dealt a hand of cards and it's here where things go differently; you may NEVER look at your own cards. Believe me, this does take some getting used to – the amount of times during your life you've picked up a bunch of cards and checked out what you're holding is a tricky thing to bypass.
Once everyone has correctly managed to grab their cards without sneaking a peek at them, it's time to begin. Of course, while you can't see your own, you CAN see what everyone else has, and this is the co-operative element comes into play. The cards come in five different colours and are numbered 1 to 5, each representing a different firework that you and your friends are looking to launch into the sky. Eight tokens sit in the middle of the table – white on one side, black on the other – and these allow you to let other players know what they have in their hands. Kind of.
You see, while you have options, they are extremely limited. A white token can be flipped which lets you pass a bit of information to one other player –pointing at their cards and telling them "these are red cards" or "you're holding 2s here and here". Now, you can't lie here, you do actually have to be honest (because it's a co-op game, remember?) and tell them everything. No being selective and only pointing out a couple of red cards when they're actually holding three, right?
Flipping a token from black to white is more helpful for you – discarding a single card from your hand means that it's out of the game, but it does let you take another from the ever dwindling pile that, when empty, signifies the end of the game. Your third option involves no token flips but can hopefully add to your score; you choose a card from your hand and place it face up on the table. You're looking to build lines of cardsin the five colours from 1 upwards, but screwing up invokes the wrath of the gods...
Three invocations ends the game immediately, but unless you and your fellow firework fellows are spectacularly inept, this is a rare occasion. Generally you'll all be working reasonably well, discerning what you've got to play with and playing them in the correct order – Hanabi is really simple to get to grips with and is actually quite hard to ruin. Once the draw deck runs out, each player gets a single turn to potentially add to the firework lines and – when all are done – you score the performance. The highest numbers on each line are added together and your total is graded, with the maximum of 25 points being your ultimate goal. Saying that, I've never hit higher than 20... perhaps I need friends who are a bit more aware. Or I need to improve my memory. Probably the second option.
The game can be enhanced with the addition of a sixth set of cards, used either as wild cards (making your life a bit easier) or an extra line of fireworks (making your life ridiculously tricky), depending on what variant you fancy playing. And all this will set you back under ten quid! You get a ridiculous amount of gameplay in this tiny little box, the variant rules add a bunch of extra ways to play – Hanabi is probably the best value game around at the moment. Add in the fact that it's been nominated for the 2013 Spiel des Jahres and this quickly becomes an essential addition to anyone's collection. Will it win the coveted prize? It's pretty likely, as this really is an excellent little game. All the fun of a fireworks show and none of the potential setting your garden ablaze!
I've said it before, I'll say it again – card games are bloody brilliant. The fact that there are so many different ways to use those little bits of paper never ceases to amaze me, and when I come across another innovation I always smile a little more. This week I've been positively beaming thanks to the latest game from 7 Wonders designer Antoine Bauza – Hanabi. A quick playing, co-operative card game, it speedily ramps up to a highly challenging affair... and all you have are a bunch of cards.
You and your fellow players assume the roles of designers of a fireworks display - Hanabi is actually Japanese for firework, combining the symbols for 'fire' and 'flower'. It's all very poetic. At the start of play, everyone is dealt a hand of cards and it's here where things go differently; you may NEVER look at your own cards. Believe me, this does take some getting used to – the amount of times during your life you've picked up a bunch of cards and checked out what you're holding is a tricky thing to bypass.
Once everyone has correctly managed to grab their cards without sneaking a peek at them, it's time to begin. Of course, while you can't see your own, you CAN see what everyone else has, and this is the co-operative element comes into play. The cards come in five different colours and are numbered 1 to 5, each representing a different firework that you and your friends are looking to launch into the sky. Eight tokens sit in the middle of the table – white on one side, black on the other – and these allow you to let other players know what they have in their hands. Kind of.
You see, while you have options, they are extremely limited. A white token can be flipped which lets you pass a bit of information to one other player –pointing at their cards and telling them "these are red cards" or "you're holding 2s here and here". Now, you can't lie here, you do actually have to be honest (because it's a co-op game, remember?) and tell them everything. No being selective and only pointing out a couple of red cards when they're actually holding three, right?
Flipping a token from black to white is more helpful for you – discarding a single card from your hand means that it's out of the game, but it does let you take another from the ever dwindling pile that, when empty, signifies the end of the game. Your third option involves no token flips but can hopefully add to your score; you choose a card from your hand and place it face up on the table. You're looking to build lines of cardsin the five colours from 1 upwards, but screwing up invokes the wrath of the gods...
Three invocations ends the game immediately, but unless you and your fellow firework fellows are spectacularly inept, this is a rare occasion. Generally you'll all be working reasonably well, discerning what you've got to play with and playing them in the correct order – Hanabi is really simple to get to grips with and is actually quite hard to ruin. Once the draw deck runs out, each player gets a single turn to potentially add to the firework lines and – when all are done – you score the performance. The highest numbers on each line are added together and your total is graded, with the maximum of 25 points being your ultimate goal. Saying that, I've never hit higher than 20... perhaps I need friends who are a bit more aware. Or I need to improve my memory. Probably the second option.
The game can be enhanced with the addition of a sixth set of cards, used either as wild cards (making your life a bit easier) or an extra line of fireworks (making your life ridiculously tricky), depending on what variant you fancy playing. And all this will set you back under ten quid! You get a ridiculous amount of gameplay in this tiny little box, the variant rules add a bunch of extra ways to play – Hanabi is probably the best value game around at the moment. Add in the fact that it's been nominated for the 2013 Spiel des Jahres and this quickly becomes an essential addition to anyone's collection. Will it win the coveted prize? It's pretty likely, as this really is an excellent little game. All the fun of a fireworks show and none of the potential setting your garden ablaze!
