Nova

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards
3. Setup
4. Playing a turn
5. Talking
6. End of the game
7. Scoring
8. A few turns (worked example)
9. Tips for beginners
10. Variants

Overview

Nova is a cooperative card game: all players form one team and win or lose together. Together you launch a firework show by building four rows in the middle of the table – one for each suit, each from Ace up to 5. The twist: you hold your cards facing outwards. You see everybody's cards except your own, so you depend on your teammates to tell you what you hold – and hints are scarce.

At the end, every row scores its top card. A perfect show scores 20 points.

• Players: 2–5; best with 3 or 4.
• You need: two standard 52-card decks, 8 coins as hint coins and 3 other small objects (buttons, matches, coins of another kind) as lives.

Nova is an original game written for this site, inspired by the cooperative card game Hanabi: the deck, the hand sizes and the scoring are its own, the turn structure follows Hanabi.

The cards

You play with 36 cards:

• From the first deck, take the A, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of each suit (20 cards).
• From the second deck, take the A, 2, 3 and 4 of each suit (16 cards).

Put everything else back in the box. The Ace counts as 1. Each suit now contains nine cards: two Aces, two 2s, two 3s, two 4s and a single 5.

This matters a lot: if both 3♥ are thrown away, the hearts row can never get past 2. And each 5 exists only once.

Setup

1. Put the 8 hint coins and the 3 lives in the middle.
2. Shuffle the 36 cards and deal, one at a time, face down: - 2 players: 5 cards each. - 3 players: 4 cards each. - 4 or 5 players: 3 cards each.

The hands are small on purpose: every play or discard draws a card, so the draw pile is your clock, and it must last long enough for 20 cards to be played. 3. The rest is the draw pile, face down in the middle. 4. Don't look at your cards! Pick them up with the backs towards you, so that the faces point outwards to the other players. You may also stand them up in a row on the table, faces away from you. 5. Leave room in the middle for the four rows (♣, ♦, ♥, ♠) and for a discard pile, where thrown-away cards are spread out face up so everyone can see them.

The youngest player begins; play goes clockwise (to the left).

Playing a turn

On your turn you do exactly one of three things: give a hint, discard a card or play a card.

1. Give a hint (costs 1 coin)

Put one hint coin aside (you can't give a hint if no coins are left). Then choose one other player and tell them about either one suit or one number in their hand. You must point at every card of theirs that matches – at least one.

• "These two cards are hearts." (pointing at both)
• "This card is a 3." (their only 3)
• "These are your Aces."

You may not say anything else: not "play this one", not "you have no spades", not colours like "red".

Example: Ben holds 2♣, 4♥, 2♠ and A♦. Anna says "These two are 2s" and points at 2♣ and 2♠. Ben now knows which of his cards are 2s – but not their suits.

2. Discard a card (gains 1 coin)

You can only discard if at least one coin has been spent (fewer than 8 in the middle). Take any card from your hand, put it face up on the discard pile and take back one hint coin. Then draw a new card.

3. Play a card

Take any card from your hand and put it face up in the middle:

• If it is the next card of its row, it fits. An Ace starts a new row; otherwise the card must be exactly one higher than the top card of its suit's row. Put it on that row.
• If it doesn't fit, the show misfires: the card goes on the discard pile and the team loses one life.

Either way, you then draw a new card. Completing a row by playing its 5 gives the team back one hint coin (if any are spent).

Example: The rows show ♣ 2, ♦ 1 (Ace), ♥ empty, ♠ 3. A 3♣ or 2♦ or A♥ or 4♠ would fit. Carla was told "this is a 3" and plays it – it is the 3♣ and goes on the clubs row. Had it been the 3♥, the team would have lost a life.

Drawing and holding your cards

Always draw without looking and add the new card at the left end of your hand (left as you hold it), facing outwards. Keep the order of your cards so hints stay useful; you may move your own cards around, but never peek. When the draw pile is empty, you don't draw any more.

Talking

You may not give any information about cards except through hints: no "careful!", no gasping when someone reaches for the wrong card. You may talk about the rules, whose turn it is and what everybody can see anyway – the rows, the discard pile and the coins.

End of the game

The game ends in one of three ways:

• The draw pile runs out: the player who draws the last card finishes their turn, then every player – including that player – gets one more turn. Then the show is over.
• All four rows reach 5: a perfect show – you stop at once.
• The third life is lost: the show is cancelled – you score 0 points.

Scoring

Add up the top cards of the four rows (Ace = 1). An empty row scores 0.

Example: At the end the rows show ♣ 5, ♦ 3, ♥ 4, ♠ 2: 5 + 3 + 4 + 2 = 14 points.

Play again and try to beat your best score.

A few turns (worked example)

Three players, 4 cards each. Nobody sees their own hand.

• Anna holds A♥, 2♦, 5♦ and 3♣ without knowing it. She sees Ben holding A♠, 3♦, 5♥, A♣ and Carla holding 2♣, 4♦, A♠, 2♥. She spends a coin: "Ben, these two are Aces." (7 coins left)
• Ben plays one of his Aces: the A♠ starts the spades row. He draws.
• Carla sees that Ben still has the A♣ marked as an Ace. She doesn't need to hint it again. She tells Anna "this is a 5" to protect Anna's 5♦ from being thrown away. (6 coins left)
• Anna discards her rightmost (oldest) card, which nobody hinted: it was the 3♣ – there is still a second 3♣. She takes back a coin (7) and draws.
• Ben plays his other Ace, the A♣. Now two rows are started.

Tips for beginners

• Protect the 5s. Each 5 exists only once – hint it before its owner discards it.
• Watch the discard pile. Once one copy of a card is gone, the other copy is precious.
• Discards are scarce. Of the 36 cards, 20 must be played for a perfect show, and some are still in your hands at the end – so the whole team can afford only about seven discards and misfires together (8 with 2 or 4 players, 7 with 3, 6 with 5).
• Discard what nobody hinted. Your oldest unhinted card (at the right end) is usually the safest to throw away.
• Don't waste hints. A hint that tells a player about two playable cards at once is worth twice as much.
• Hints mean something. If someone points at your card without an obvious reason, it is probably playable now.

Variants

All optional – agree before you start.

• Gentle show: losing the third life ends the game, but you keep the points you have.
• Grand finale (harder): use the 5s of the second deck and the 6s of the first deck as well. Each suit then has two copies of A–5 and a single 6: 44 cards, rows go up to 6, a perfect show scores 24, and playing a 6 (not a 5) completes a row.
• Wild jokers (easier): shuffle one or two jokers into the deck. A joker is not a suit or a number, so no hint ever points at it. When a joker is played, it always fits: its player puts it on any row, where it counts as the next card of that row. A joker played as the last card of a row completes it and returns a coin as usual. A joker can also be discarded like any other card.