Week 9 - Card Games

Our group played Hanabi, a clever little take on building a fireworks show with the help of others, and maybe some social deductions. From the thematic elements to the actual build of the cards, this was a unique experience, unlike any other card game I have ever played. I am used to myself knowing what is in my hand or nobody knowing what is in my hand (slap jack, for example). In this game, everyone but you knows your hand. As discussed in The Playing Card Platform, the players of Hanabi “…hold their cards face out and must use their teammates’ verbal clues to deduce their own hand (and help others do the same)” (Nathan Altice). Like a regular deck of cards, “the card’s back-decorated with a uniform pattern to make all cards appear identical.” (Nathan Altice) Because of this, there is no telling what card is which. The back of these cards is decorated with part of a building, and tree, and fireworks going off in the background, all with a white, grey, or black color. This also helps with the theme of the game; instead of keeping the backs a boring black or white color, they have decorated them to fit the theme they chose to go with. Something that could come into play during a round is someone’s ability to count cards. In the reading, it states, “prior knowledge of a deck’s sequence would likewise tilt a card player’s advantage unfairly.” In Hanabi, there are a certain number of ones, twos, threes, fours, and fives. Instead of counting cards resulting in an unfair advantage, in this context, it would actually benefit all the players. A benefit of this game is that you just need a tabletop (Or, if you are a superior human being, the floor because the floor gang is the best gang). You just need to make sure that there is enough space to place the tokens used for spending when giving information, the “lives” tokens, and the actual cards. I watched the Dune Imperium: Immortality video (bc dune is cool). Something that stuck out to me is that I would consider this to be a card game due to the amount of power the cards hold and how they push the game forward. However, there is a board, so is it a board game? Anyway, I’m willing to argue it’s a card game that uses other elements of board games, but without the cards, there is no game. This makes the play space a little different. We now have a board that keeps progress organized, and we need space outside the board to place other cards used in the game. People can spend tokens to gain cards to use to their advantage, kind of like how in Hanabi, we spent tokens to give information. While there are big differences between this game and other card games, it shares more characteristics with card games when taking a closer look at how it works. 

Link to video