Anime Cubed

HOW TO PLAY HANAFUDA by 11

Hanafuda is an easy two-player matching game, with somewhat complicated scoring (the type of Hanafuda you are playing is called "Koi-Koi"). The short version is make matches, collect card types. The long version is below.
The Cards
There are 48 total cards in a Hanafuda deck - four per month (suit). You can tell what is in what month by the flowers on the card. The name of the month doesn't matter, just that those cards are in the same month.

In Billy Hanafuda, each card will say the month and type under it, so you don't even need any of this, really (although Learning Is Fun, am i right?):

January (pinecones)


February (bubbly flowers on sticks)


March (circle flowers)


April (purple hanging flowervines)


May (pointy flowers)


June (roses)

July (swooshy upwards red flowervines)


August (hills)


September (Yellow and red bursts)


October (maple leaves)


November (weepy ferns)


December (threeleaves and stars)

Note the last card in November - the Lightning - doesn't really have weepy ferns on it. Just pretend that it is the weepy ferns, but there's a rain storm, so they are all swooshed around.

These are split up into four Types of cards: Brights, Ribbons, Animals, and Plains.

There are five Brights:
The Crane, the Flower Curtain, the Full Moon, the Rain Man, and the Phoenix.

Note that the Crane is a Bright, not an Animal, (the Rain Man's little frog buddy doesn't count as an animal either), and that Rain Man isn't a full Bright until you have more than three, unlike the other four (called Dry Brights). These are marked "B" while playing ("1/2B" for the Rain Man).

Ribbons are obvious: They are the ones with ribbons on them:

Ribbons are marked as R. Three Ribbons are Blue (B - well, purpleish really, but whatever), three are Poetry (P - they have writing on them), but they are all Ribbons.

Next is Animals.

The third one is the Lily by the Bridge (there's a fish in the water - you can't see it because it's hiding, get it?), and the seventh one is a Juice Cup, and Juice is kind of like an animal, so it counts. (just play along) These are all marked as "A" when playing. Note the Boar, Deer, and Butterflies (5,8,4) - those are a special set like the blue Ribbons and the poetry Ribbons, we'll talk about that later.

Finally is Plains. This is all the cards that are left.



These are marked with a "P". Of these, all you have to know is that the Juice Cup also counts as a Plain (it is listed as "A + P"), and Lightning, as fancy as it is, is just another Plain. Those three at the end, with the one being yellow, are just like that because companies use the space at the bottom of them to write their company name, like the Ace of Spades in a western 52-card deck. Hence, the Billy headbands. :) (and yes, the yellow-bottom threeleaf is just a normal Plain, too, it's just yellow)


Playing the Game
The starting setup is eight cards in each player's hand, and eight cards on the Field. Okay, to play the game, whoever is the dealer goes first. They:
  • Play a card from their hand onto the Field. If it is the same month of any card on the Field (a match), the player takes the card they played and one card that matches it from the Field and and puts it in their Taken Pile. Otherwise, it stays on the Field. Then, they
  • Draw the top card from the deck and play it onto the Field. Just like from their hand, if it matches something they take it and the single card it matched, otherwise it stays there.
Note that when you play a card to the Field, if there is a match, you have to take it. This doesn't mean you are forced to play a card from your hand that matches, but if the card you pick has a match, you have to take it. After this, if they just got more points, they can then either choose to take their current points and end the hand (they then deal the next hand if the game isn't over), or pass (Koi-Koi). If they didn't get points, then they just pass. Now it is the other player's turn. Go back and forth until someone banks or both players are out of cards in their hands.

That's it. Easy, right? Now, for Scoring.
Scoring
You get points by taking a bunch of a type of card or a special combination. These are called Yaku (like in Mahjong)

The Yaku used in Billy are:
  • Any 10 Plains is 1 Point, +1 Point for each additional Plain
  • Any 5 Ribbons is 1 Point, +1 Point for each additional Ribbon
  • Any 5 Animals is 1 Point, +1 Point for each additional Animal
  • Any 3 Dry Brights is 5 Points, +2 Points for the Rain Man, +3 Points for the other Dry Bright
  • 3 Blue Ribbons is 5 Points
  • 3 Poetry Ribbons is 5 Points
  • Boar, Deer, Butterfly (RoShamBo) is 5 Points
  • Full Moon and Lightning (The Loop) is 5 Points
  • Full Moon and Lily by the Bridge (The Sacrifice) is 5 Points
  • Double Points for having 7+ Points
  • Double Points if your opponent called Koi-Koi this hand
You score as many lines as you can.
So, is you have 7 Ribbons, and 3 of them are Blue, you get 16 Points (1 point for 5 Ribbons, +2 for the 2 extra; 5 points for 3 Blue Ribbons, x2 for having 7 or more points).
Things get big fast that's what she said since if your opponent Koi-Kois and you get 7+ points, those points are going to be quadrupled. Also note that the Juice Cup counts as both a Plain and an Animal, so 9 other Plains + 4 other Animals + Juice Cup = 2 points (10 Plains, 5 Animals).

Other Scoring Rules
  • If both players run out of cards, the last one to Koi-Koi scores whatever they Koi-Koi'd at.
  • If both players run out of cards and no one Koi-Koi'd or got any points, the Dealer gets 6 Points (the Dealer's Privilege)
  • If the board starts with 2 cards each of 4 months, or all 4 cards from a month, you redeal
  • If a player starts with 2 cards each of 4 months, or all 4 cards of a month, they get 6 Points (if both players get this, only the Dealer gets it)
  • After 10 hands, yaku points are doubled. After 20, they are doubled again (not that you'll ever need it)

Types of Games
Most games are played to 30 Points. Randomly you'll play to 50 Points, but you'll get +100% XP.

Character Battles are played with Hit Points - whenever someone scores Points, they gain that many HP and their opponent loses that many HP. Hit 0HP, and lose. You are in effect playing until one of you is a certain number of Points ahead of the other.
Fun Facts / Strategy

- More powerful opponents may get shuffle/redraws. This means when they draw the top card of the deck to play, and don't like it, they draw again and shuffle the deck.

- Turning Autoplay on doesn't affect your game one bit - it merely plays the top card of the deck automatically if there are no choices to be made (one match or no match). If there are multiple matches, it'll let you pick.

- Rain Man counts as .5 Brights until you have more than three brights.

- If you can see all four cards of a month, you have control over them - you know they won't be taken from you, since only you can play the cards left in that month.

- Don't just take everything, go for something. 8 Plains, 3 random Animals, and 4 random Ribbons isn't worth anything. If you see a shot at a Yaku, go for it.

- You get a total of 6 points for banking 6 points, but just one more point raises that to 14. Koi-Koi can be your friend.

- You get a bonus for the point spread at the end of the match. Sometimes a big win is worth it.

- You get 1 free game per day. There are multiple ways to get more.

- There are many variations of the rules in Hanafuda, so this game may be different than ones you've played. For example, there is no 'hiki' (taking an entire suit), or a monthly bonus suit.

- The penalty for being caught cheating is the loss of one random taken card. Any lost card, through cheating or being caught cheating, is put to the bottom of the deck.

- The traditional names of the flowers by month are Pine, Plum Blossom, Cherry Blossom, Wisteria, Iris, Peony, Bush Clover, Silver Grass, Chrysanthemum, Maple, Willow, Paulownia.

- In Billy, the month of May is actually the 'Hurricane Lily', a flower in the same family as the Iris. The scientific term for a Hurricane Lily is Lycoris Radiata. Mindfreak.


Best 1-player flash Hanafuda on the internet: Gamedesign
(click 'English', then scroll down to 'Hanafuda'. The scoring is different, but the idea is the same)