Hanabi Wins the 2013 Spiel des Jahres Award

Hanabi is the latest winner of the prestigious Spiel des Jahres award, announced earlier this week. The Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year in Germany) was selected by a panel of ten journalists who cover the game industry. Created in 1978, the award intends to highlight the best games for a widespread German audience, and winning the award can drive a game's sales to 300,000 to 500,000 copies or more over its lifetime (source: Wikipedia).

We are pleased to see that the award has gone to a great casual game that is currently available in English in the U.S. Hanabi is a small, cooperative card game for 2 to 5 players, ages 8 and up, and plays in under 30 minutes. Players work together to create a spectacular fireworks show. They do this by collectively forming sets of red, yellow, green, and blue fireworks in the correct numerical order. The catch is that players cannot look at their own cards, but they must hold them so that all of the other players can see them. Players can give clues to each other as to the number and color of the cards in their hands. At the end of the game, points are added up and the score indicates the quality of the fireworks display.

For complete rules, see the offical rulebook.