Overview

Hanabi is a cooperative game where your collective goal is to build a fabulous fireworks show. Like any decent show, you should start with small fireworks and finish with the big ones. You will do this by playing red, blue, green, yellow, and white cards from ranks 1 to 5. The problem? You don't know what cards you have. But you know which ones your fellow players do. So you must communicate with each other to build a proper show by placing cards in sequential order with no misfires.

Gameplay

Cards and Firework Stacks

The deck has 50 cards. The cards come in five colors: Red Blue Green Yellow White

Each color has 10 cards. Three are card1,with a 1clue,, two are card2,with a 2clue,, two are card3,with a 3clue,, two are card4,with a 4clue,, and one single card5,with a 5clue,.

There is only one firework of each color. Each firework only has one of each number and must be placed in ascending order. So at the end (if successful), you should have 5 fireworks of 5 cards each, 1 through 5. Placing a duplicate on any stack will result in a misfire. If three misfires occur, the game is over and the players lose.

Communication

You can only communicate with your teammates via clues. You have a limited number of clues, represented by tokens like this: ​clue tokens

These are displayed in the upper right corner. Each time you give a clue, a ​clue tokens moves from the white area (available tokens) to the black (played tokens). If there are no tokens available, you must play or discard on your turn.

Setup

In a 2-3 player game, each player gets a hand of 5 cards. In a 4-5 player game, each player gets a hand of 4 cards.

Gameplay

On your turn, you can do one of three things.

• Give a clue.
• Discard a card.
• Play a card.

Give a Clue

To give a clue, there must be at least 1 ​clue tokens in the white area. Click on another player's card. You have the choice of telling the player

• Which cards of that color the player has
• Which cards of that number the player has

At that point, the ​clue tokens is moved from the white "available" zone to the black "used" zone.

The game records these clues, so you can tell which cards other players have pointed out are what number and what color.

Play a Card

Choose a card in your hand and select to play it. It will move automatically to the appropriate color stack.

• If it is the next card in sequence for a color, it is placed on the appropriate stack, adding to or completing the firework.
• If it is not the next card in sequence for any color, then the firework has misfired and the card is discarded. The player draws a replacement card.

If the played card completes a firework, a ​clue tokens moves from the spent black area to the white available area.

Discard a Card

To discard a card, there must be at least 1 ​clue tokens in the black area. Click on the card you wish to discard. A replacement card is drawn and a ​clue tokens moves from the black area to the white area, making it available.

Discarding is a necessary part of the game as you will need to restore ​clue tokens. Plus your hand will have unplayable duplicates so you must discard at some point. (e.g., if you play a blue3b,with a blue3clue, and the Blue stack already has a blue3b,with a blue3clue, in it, that results in a misfire.)

Game End

There are three ways the game can end.

• If the players cause 3 misfires (misplayed cards), the game immediately ends and the players lose.
• If all 5 firework stacks get completed, the players have won. and granted a stunning victory with 25 points.
• If the deck is empty, each player plays one more time (including the player who emptied the deck). Once this last round completes, the score is tallied.

Scoring

To calculate score, add the largest value card (top card) in each of the firework stacks. Artistic impression is determined by the Artisan League of Fireworks Technicians reference scale:

The only way to score above 25 is to include multicolored cards. See Variants below.

Variants

Colors

Black Powder

Ten black cards are added to the deck. These cards have different quantities of ranks, in reverse order from the other colors. One is black powder1,with a black powder1clue,, two are black powder2,with a black powder2clue,, two are black powder3,with a black powder3clue,, two are black powder4,with a black powder4clue,, and three are black powder5,with a black powder5clue,.

Like in "Tricky", the black cards form a firework stack, but are played in descending order (from black powder5,with a black powder5clue, to black powder1,with a black powder1clue,).

You cannot give clues about the color of black cards. They have no color (who can see a black firework?). You can only give clues about its number.

When scoring, subtract 1 point for every card missing from the black fireworks display.

5 Flamboyants

Also known as "The Sumptuous 5". When you play the last card on a firework stack (typically the card5,with a 5clue,), draw a bonus card. Bonus cards have different effects.

• Gain a ​clue tokens
• Gain a ​clue tokens and lose 1 misfire
• Give a color clue to a player for free
• Give a number clue to a player for free
• Shuffle a discarded card back into the deck (optional)
• Play a discarded card (optional)

Convention Used

Hanabi is a game about communication, but there aren't enough ​clue tokens to be able to indicate both color and number of every played card. To give more information, the team must agree on a set of interpretations for clues, playable cards, and discardable cards. This is a convention.

If the players use different conventions to communicate, they are sure to lose. You can read more about conventions in on the Hanabi-Tips page or this forum post by Romain672.

During game setup, the creator can indicate which convention the players should use. These are not enforceable, so please respect the convention that the table creator set.

Preset Deck

Preset decks are useful for comparing teams/conventions using the same deck. You can select to have no preset deck or choose one of 5 preset decks of the day. These change every day at 0:00 UTC.

Unofficial variant

In a two-player game, hand size is 6 instead of 5. In a five-player game, hand size is 3 instead of 4.