Air parade

Terry

Terry

Jen

Jen

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Score

0

Booms

0

Hints

0
𝛷
34
You

You

Sue

Sue

Air parade rules

Game objective

Air Parade is a collaborative card game. Unlike most card based games, here a player's own cards are hidden from them. Instead, a player can see all the cards in all other players' hands.

The goal of the game is to play the correct cards one after another, without ever looking at the cards in your hand. This is made viable through the hints that your fellow players give you about your cards, and hints that you give to the other players.

There is no specific win or lose condition here. Instead, your objective is to maximize your score at the end of the game. The max score for a game is 25.

About the cards

There are 5 suits (colors) in the game: Blue, Green, Red, Yellow, and Black.

Per suit, there are 5 ranks, from 1 to 5. Each rank has a different number of copies in play. There are

  • 3 cards for rank-1,
  • 2 cards for rank-2,
  • 2 cards for rank-3,
  • 2 cards for rank-4, and
  • 1 card for rank-5.

In total, there are 10 cards per suit, and therefore, 50 cards in the complete deck. Here are some example cards:

Blue-One
Green-Two
Red-Three
Yellow-Four
White-Five

Starting the game

The entire deck of 50 cards is shuffled, and 4 cards are distributed to each player. The remaining 34 cards are stacked into a "replacement" deck. Next to it is the "discard" pile, which starts as empty.

In addition, there are two types of tokens made available:

  • Boom tokens: The count starts at 3.
  • Hint tokens: The count starts at 8.

In the center, you should see five more placeholder sections, one for each suit. This is where the correctly played cards for that suit will be placed.

The game starts with a random player, and the turns proceed in a clockwise order.

Playing the game

There are 3 actions a player can choose from, during their turn:

  1. Play a card
    • You choose a card from your hand, and attempt to add it to the pile corresponding to its suit in the center.
    • The cards can only be played in ascending order, per suit. For example, at the start of the game, only the rank-1 cards of all suits are valid to play. Once you have played the rank-1 of a suit, say Green, the rest of its remaining rank-1 cards become invalid, while its remaining rank-2 cards are now playable.
    • If you play the card correctly, then it gets added to the center pile corresponding to its suit, and your score increases by 1.
    • If you play an incorrect card, for example, playing a rank-5 card right at the start of the game, you incur a penalty. The penalty is tracked using the Boom tokens. Each incorrectly played card lowers the token count by 1. The incorrectly played card is added to the discard pile.
    • After playing, you draw a card from the replacement deck without looking at it, if the deck still has cards.
  2. Give a hint
    • A hint can only be given if the Hint token count is at least 1.
    • You choose a rank or a suit, and the player you want to inform. The target player is informed which of their cards match that rank or suit, and which do not.

    • For example, some possible hints for this hand are:

      Blue-One
      Blue-One
      Blue-Two
      Green-One
      • "First 3 cards are blue", or
      • "First, second, and last card are rank-1", or
      • "Last card is green", or
      • "There are no red cards", and so on.
    • This lowers the Hint token count by 1.
  3. Discard a card
    • You choose a card from your hand, and move it to the discard pile.
    • After discarding, you draw a card from the replacement deck without looking at it, if the deck still has cards.
    • Additionally, if your Hint token count is below 8, then it goes up by 1.

Scoring rules

You get 1 point for each card correctly played.

There are no points lost for an incorrect play.

Ending the game

There are 3 ways for a game to end:

  1. You reach the score of 25. This is the highest possible score of the game, and so if you reach it, then the game immediately ends.
  2. Your "Boom token" count reaches 0.
  3. The replacement decks has run out. Note that each player gets exactly one more turn after the last card from the replacement deck is drawn.

The score at the end of the game is your final score for the game.

How to play

To perform either of the 3 actions described above:

  • Play a card
    1. First, left-click on the "Play card" button that's right below your cards.
    2. Next, left-click on the card you want to play.
      • You can left-click another card to change your selection.
      • You can left-click the selected card to unselect it.
    3. Finally, left-click on the "Confirm" button to play the card.
  • Give a hint
    1. First, left-click on the "Give hint" button.
      • If the "Give hint" button is disabled, that means you don't have any Hint tokens remaining.
    2. From the popover, choose the Target player, and a suit or a rank that you want to hint about.
    3. Once you've chosen a Target and a Color / Rank, the game will highlight which cards in that player's hand match that hint, and darken the ones that don't match.
    4. Finally, left-click on the "Confirm" button to give the hint.
  • Discard a card
    1. First, left-click on the "Discard card" button.
    2. Next, left-click on the card you want to discard.
    3. Finally, left-click on the "Confirm" button to discard the card.

If you don't like your move, for example, due to accidentally choosing the wrong action, you can left-click the "Cancel" button to reset your turn, before you have confirmed the action.

In addition, there are some moves you can perform without consuming your turn.

  • Left-click on the text box in the center, to open a scrollable history. Left-click it again to close it.
  • Left-click on any of your cards to look at what possible cards it could be - the overlay also shows how many copies of that card are still hidden from you. This takes into consideration
    • The cards you can see in other players' hands, and
    • The cards that have been successfully played, and
    • The cards that have been discarded, and
    • All hints you have received since you first got that card.
  • Left-click on another player's card to see what that player's deductions are about that card.
    • This closely resembles the deduction that the game does for the cards in your hand, with a small caveat.
    • Since you don't actually know what cards are in your hand, this overlay excludes that information while constraining the realm of possibilities. So, the actual deductions by your target player will be better than what the game shows you.
  • Left-click on the replacement deck to see what cards are still remaining.
    • This overlay too disregards the cards in your hand, when making this deduction.
    • In other words, the overlay shows you which cards are still remaining, along with the cards that are in your hand.

Tips & Tricks

These are based on my play style, and are by no means the path to a perfect score. Feel free to employ them or ignore them as per your own experiences and play style.

  1. Playing the correct card is the most important action of the game. In general, if you can play a card or discard another, it is better to play, as discarding brings you closer to the end, without boosting your score.
  2. Similarly, when deciding between playing a card you're confident about and giving a hint, prefer playing the card.
  3. Use the overlays to find out the possibilities about your cards, and your teammate's estimate about their own cards. Use this info while giving hints, to help them deduce which cards are playable.
  4. Don't forget about the hints that match 0 cards in your target's hand. Sometimes such hints can wipe out a large number of irrelevant possibilities.
  5. Pay close attention to what your teammate's estimates about a card are. You don't need to hint about a card whose possibilities are either all playable or all discardable.
  6. Some cards have multiple copies, for example, rank-1 cards all have 3 copies in play. So, discarding them in a pinch is safe, vs playing a card that you are not confident in, since an incorrect play incurs a penalty.
  7. While giving a hint, try to deduce what your target player might do without your hint. For example, if they already have a card in hand that they can confidently play, then it might be better to give a hint to someone else.
  8. If you get a hint that matches exactly one card, especially during the first few turns, it is likely that the AI wants you to play that card, unless it is very obviously not playable.
  9. If you're in a pinch, where you don't have any remaining hints, and you don't have full knowledge about which card can be played or discarded, consider the odds of playing / discarding semi-blind. If the odds are good, for example, if a card has 5 possibilities of which 4 are playable, then it is a good bet to play that card. Again, prefer playing over discarding, assuming the odds are in your favor.

This is a challenging game to master, and the luck element can certainly play a role in your outcomes. Don't shy away from trying out different strategies.

To learn more

Air parade is inspired by the board game Hanabi. Check out its Wikipedia page to learn more about it.