Week 09 - Card Games Analyzed

This week, in a new group, I got to play an interesting game named Hanabi. This game proved unique in the sense that while it did, “[correlate] in some abstract form to the player’s prior knowledge of games” (Kelvin Autenrieth), Hanabi flipped what I knew upside down. In almost all card games I have played I either knew what my card was, or no one did at the start of the game. With Hanabi, not only were you the only player to not know your card but you could only gather so much information before you were forced to either play or discard a card from your hand. Adding to this you could only communicate verbally in a very limited sense by utilizing a token, of which you only had a set amount. You could regain tokens later by discarding cards but this is tricky as chances are you know little to nothing about what you hold. Furthermore, if you were to discard the wrong card, then you would lose the ability to complete a set of colored numbers for the Hanabi. 

Despite these difficulties faced in the game, all players are trying to work together as opposed to competitively. As such making sure, “…that all players have the complete knowledge of the rules at their disposal”(Kelvin Autenreith) is essential. Rules such as spending a token to provide a smidgen of information, and how to get a token back. Even knowing objectives such as building up from the numbers 1 to 5 and completing each color stack to the highest number to achieve the highest score are all necessary. Overall, the game of Hanabi is not difficult to understand and can provide a fun way to bond with others by relying on them to guide you or open options to you.

In contrast to Hanabi, the game Catan, which I watched from the Watch it Played, was more so about strategy and competition. In short, you wanted to be the first player to get 10 points in a single round by building roads, villages, cities, and by collecting certain development cards. Not only that but you compete with fellow players for resources, and can block the expansion of one another. Much like in Card Wars players may “restrict their play space” (Nathan Altice). Yet their also remains a positive side in which players may trade resources with one another should others be willing. In the end the game itself is highly competitive, and while slightly limited by the necessity to have space to set up a hexagonal playing field, the field itself can be changed from game to game. Thus changing the strategies of players each time.