Green Room Gaming #2: Hanabi
For this entry in the Green Room Gaming series, we’re going to take a look at a game that is not only one of my favorite travel games, but one of my favorite games in general: Hanabi. Hanabi was created by notable board game designer Antoine Bauza and is a fully cooperative game. It won the coveted Spiel des Jahres award in 2013, and remains very popular to this day.
Although several versions of Hanabi exist, the most readily available one comes in a small cardboard box that is barely larger than a standard deck of playing cards. The game itself consists of a set of 60 playing cards numbered 1 through 5 and several small tokens used to track clues and penalties.
In Hanabi, players take on the role of a team of Japanese fireworks artists who are working to put on the best fireworks show possible. The cy do this by taking turns and playing cards from their hand onto five differently-colored piles in ascending numerical order. The catch is that each player cannot see their own hand and must rely on clues given by the other players to determine which cards are safe to play.
Each turn, a player must perform one of three actions. The first action is to play a card from their hand onto the board and draw a new card from the deck. If this card can be added to any of the five colored piles (for example, if the card is a white 2 and the white 1 has already been played), then the card is placed on the corresponding pile and a new card is drawn. If this card cannot be legally added to one of the poles, then the card is discarded and the players receive a penalty. Three penalties, and all players lose.
The second action is to give a clue to another player. The cluegiver chooses either a number or a color, then identifies all cards in another player’s hand share that share that characteristic. No other information may be given. Giving a clue uses up a clue token, which are limited in supply and shared amongst all players.
The third action is to discard a card and draw a new card from the deck. Doing so will regain a spent clue token, which may be used by the players in future turns.
The game ends either when the players receive three penalties, or when the last card is drawn from the deck (after which each player takes one final turn). After this point, the players total the topmost card of each pile to get their final score (for a maximum of 25 points).
Hanabi is a fantastic green room game for a number of reasons. In addition to being relatively quick and easy to pack, Hanabi, as a cooperative game, focuses on effective communication and situational awareness. I won’t pretend that there’s much overlap between understanding when your teammate is wrapping up their solo and understanding that “this is a three” means “please, for the love of all that is holy, play this card,” but both require getting into your teammate’s head and trying to see things from their point of view. Because of this, you'll find that your fellow players will often get better at Hanabi the more often they play.
Hanabi can be easily found at most local and online game stores, as well as larger retailers like Target. At $10.95 MSRP, it is a cheap and readily-available option for even the most casual of gamers. I actually own two copies of Hanabi and keep one of them in my bachi bag for a quick game during gigs.
