Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Hanafuda cards originated in beginning of 18th-century Japan. Legend says stewards of Edo Shogunate created it from Portuguese playing cards.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Read the full game description
Hanafuda cards originated in beginning of 18th-century Japan. Legend says stewards of Edo Shogunate created it from Portuguese playing cards. A deck consists of forty-eight cards divided into twelve suits of four cards each. Each suit represents one of the twelve months of the year or individual plants (almost all flowers). The cards are small (about 1 x 2 inches), made from stiff cardboard, and are beautifully illustrated. Many different games can be played with a Hanafuda deck. The standard game was Hachi-Hachi (Eighty-eight), which resembles the Western game Casino, but is more complicated and subtle. The standard game now is Koi-Koi. Re-implemented by: Go Stop, the game using Hwatu (??, ??), Korean Hanafuda.