Hanabi is a cooperative game for 2–5 players. Everyone shares one goal: build five fireworks, one in each color, from 1 to 5. Your teammates can see your cards, but you cannot.
Each player receives five cards with 2–3 players or four cards with 4–5 players. There are fifty cards: three 1s, two each of 2, 3 and 4, and one 5 in each of five colors. The team starts with eight clue tokens and three fuses.
Give a clue: Spend one clue token to tell one teammate all the cards in their hand of a particular color or number. The clue must identify at least one card. Every matching card is highlighted, and every nonmatching card is recorded as excluded. You cannot clue yourself.
Play a card: Choose one of your own unseen cards. It succeeds only if it is the next number for its color. A wrong card goes to the discard and burns one fuse. Completing a color with a 5 restores one clue token, up to eight.
Discard a card: Remove one card to recover one clue token, then draw a replacement if available. Discarding is forbidden while all eight tokens are available.
Known colors and numbers are shown on the backs of your cards. Each card also remembers excluded colors and numbers, available in its card description. When you play or discard a card, the remaining cards keep their positions and clues; a newly drawn card goes on the right.
Three misplays end the display immediately with a score of zero, regardless of completed fireworks. Completing all five stacks scores a perfect 25. After the final card is drawn, each player gets one more turn, including the player who drew it. Add the tops of the five stacks for a score out of 25.
The intended communication is through the game's clue actions, not extra information sent through voice or chat. In solo testing, switching seats reveals the cards visible to that seat; hide the screen while changing seats if playing with others locally.