Great video, Eric. I have feelings very much in the same vein about Hanabi, a game I've played over 800 times, most of those in-person. Unquestionably the most interesting game experience I've ever had in my life--and way, way up there in "most interesting experience overall"--was working out a natural, understandable meta/"rules of the game" with a good friend over a series of weeks. We both worked at a big tech company (perhaps even the one that owns this site) and were both pretty fed up with our jobs at that time, so each afternoon we'd slip into an empty conference room and play a few rounds of Hanabi. It took over 80 games for us to get our first win, slowly building the blocks of understanding, and nowadays our winrate is somewhere north of 90%. I don't get to play with him much any more, as we no longer live near each other, but it was truly an amazing experience. Like you, playing Hanabi now is like solving a pleasant puzzle for me. If I'm playing with experienced people, it's likely that we'll win, and the interest is in the shuffle: is it a hard deal? An easy one? Does it have tough bits we have to navigate through in novel (or near-novel; there's not a ton of genuine surprise after hundreds of games) ways? And if I play with new people it's the pleasure of having to work with-slash-around their incomplete understanding of the game. A lot of folks have expressed intimidation in playing with me, knowing how much I've developed strategies, and I'm always bummed out by that, because I think playing with new people is a fascinatingly *different* sort of puzzle. For a while we played a lot with the rainbow cards, which make Hanabi considerably more challenging (we used the "sixth suit, rainbows are every color, cannot declare them directly" rules that were the original ones in the first English printing), but I discovered that--at least for me--it just wasn't as fun. My joy in Hanabi comes from sinking back into a familiar, comfortable universe, but one that is differently dis-ordered each time. So: thanks, Mr. Bauza, for not just making a crappy part of my working life better, but for having brought me many, many hours of genuine delight over the years. I don't play Hanabi nearly as much as I used to, and I'll probably never play it again as intensely as I did back then, but I'm also still always up for a game. I still enjoy revisiting that same beautiful place over and over again despite the lack of new secrets to turn up.
I will state the obvious by saying if you have the Extreme version you can play the basic game by ignoring the symbols, which would save the need to own both sets.
Great video, Eric.
I have feelings very much in the same vein about Hanabi, a game I've played over 800 times, most of those in-person. Unquestionably the most interesting game experience I've ever had in my life--and way, way up there in "most interesting experience overall"--was working out a natural, understandable meta/"rules of the game" with a good friend over a series of weeks.
We both worked at a big tech company (perhaps even the one that owns this site) and were both pretty fed up with our jobs at that time, so each afternoon we'd slip into an empty conference room and play a few rounds of Hanabi. It took over 80 games for us to get our first win, slowly building the blocks of understanding, and nowadays our winrate is somewhere north of 90%. I don't get to play with him much any more, as we no longer live near each other, but it was truly an amazing experience.
Like you, playing Hanabi now is like solving a pleasant puzzle for me. If I'm playing with experienced people, it's likely that we'll win, and the interest is in the shuffle: is it a hard deal? An easy one? Does it have tough bits we have to navigate through in novel (or near-novel; there's not a ton of genuine surprise after hundreds of games) ways? And if I play with new people it's the pleasure of having to work with-slash-around their incomplete understanding of the game. A lot of folks have expressed intimidation in playing with me, knowing how much I've developed strategies, and I'm always bummed out by that, because I think playing with new people is a fascinatingly *different* sort of puzzle.
For a while we played a lot with the rainbow cards, which make Hanabi considerably more challenging (we used the "sixth suit, rainbows are every color, cannot declare them directly" rules that were the original ones in the first English printing), but I discovered that--at least for me--it just wasn't as fun. My joy in Hanabi comes from sinking back into a familiar, comfortable universe, but one that is differently dis-ordered each time.
So: thanks, Mr. Bauza, for not just making a crappy part of my working life better, but for having brought me many, many hours of genuine delight over the years. I don't play Hanabi nearly as much as I used to, and I'll probably never play it again as intensely as I did back then, but I'm also still always up for a game. I still enjoy revisiting that same beautiful place over and over again despite the lack of new secrets to turn up.
Thanks for this Eric, great explanation. Bought them both as a result.
I bought The Game because I was fascinated by this video. Cannot wait to play it!
Thank you for this wonderful discussion of The Game/Extreme and its appeal to you - I concur!
I will state the obvious by saying if you have the Extreme version you can play the basic game by ignoring the symbols, which would save the need to own both sets.
What do the⚡♾️ symbols mean?
Lightning is "happens immediately"; the infinity symbol is "is active forever (until covered)".
@@SunfallTE Thanks