{
  "path": "/you-should-play-hanabi",
  "site": "at://did:plc:zviscnpwyvj6y32agi5davn5/site.standard.publication/3me4txfib342s",
  "tags": [
    "card-games",
    "hanabi"
  ],
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "title": "You should play Hanabi!",
  "bskyPostRef": {
    "uri": "at://did:plc:zviscnpwyvj6y32agi5davn5/app.bsky.feed.post/3lfv4smdwss2i"
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  "description": "It's been living rent free in my brain.",
  "publishedAt": "2025-01-16T00:00:00.000Z",
  "textContent": "Very rarely do I encounter \"new\" card games, especially ones that actually make\nyou think instead of relying on a weird gimmick. However, that's not the case\nwith Hanabi, a sort of multiplayer solitaire game that\nhas been living rent-free in my brain in recent days.\n\nThe goal of Hanabi is very simple: successfully place numbered cards for 5\ndifferent colors in order from 1 through 5, kind of like Solitaire. Achieving\nthat goal, though, is more complicated than you might think.\n\n!A finished game of Hanabi\n\nThe game is played with a deck of 50 cards: three 1's of each color, two 2's,\n3's, and 4's of each color, and one 5 of each color. Remember this, it's\nimportant. When the game starts, you get a hand of a certain size. The more\nplayers you have, the fewer cards in your hand. On your turn, you can perform\none of three actions: playing a card, discarding a card, or giving a clue.\n\nPlaying cards is obviously important, since you have to place cards in order to\nwin. When you play a card, a new card is drawn from the deck and placed at the\nfar left slot in your hand. Doing this immediately probably isn't the best idea\nthough, since you can only see other player's cards, not your own, so you\nwould be playing blind. If you misplay a card (e.g. by trying to play a green 4\non top of a green 2), that card gets discarded and you get a strike;\nthree strikes and the game is over.\n\nThankfully, you can help your fellow players out by giving one of them clues\nabout what cards they have in their hand. Since you can see their hands, you\ncan make judgements on which cards might or might not be important. Be careful\nthough, as your choice of clue could be devastating: if someone accidentally\ndiscards both of a certain middle card (or God forbid, a 5), you can no\nlonger get full points since you can't complete that color.\n\nWhen you give clues, you're telling one player which of their cards are a\ncertain color or a certain number. You can't do both, at least not in the same\nturn, meaning unless a card gets hit by both a color clue and a number clue\nyou're working with incomplete information. Giving clues is definitely a skill.\n\nInterpreting clues is the other half of this game's equation. Since you're not\nallowed to communicate about the values of cards or intents of clues, you have\nto guess whether a given clue means \"you should play this card\", \"this card is\nimportant for later\", or \"these are trash and you can get rid of them\".\nMisinterpret a clue and you could lose the game. Clues also allow you to know\nwhat a card _isn't_, which can sometimes be just as valuable as knowing what it\nis.\n\nSomething else to consider is that you only have a limited number of clues.\nAll players share a pool of 8 clues; run out of clues and you can't share\ninformation anymore. Thankfully, you can discard cards to get clues back. Each\ndiscarded card nets you one clue. Unfortunately, you also can't discard\ncards if you have too many clues. This means that as a team you have to\nmanage the economy of clues and discards; lean too hard on one or the other and\nyou could cause your team to misplay or discard important cards.\n\nThe game is over when:\n\n- All possible cards have been successfully played,\n- The team gets three strikes, or\n- The team runs out of cards in the deck.\n\nHanabi is a great game. Go play it!",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://isaaccorbrey.com/notes/you-should-play-hanabi"
}