New Year party games that get everyone excited: a fun collection of ideas from classics to DIY

HANABI

HANABI rules video by the Board Game Association

This game is for 2–5 players and takes about 30 minutes to play.

All players cooperate to launch as many cards as possible in numerical order by color.

Interestingly, you can’t see your own hand in this game.

Instead, you can see other players’ hands and use deduction—making it a fresh, innovative experience.

It’s recommended for anyone looking to try something unusual.

akinator

If you give answers that are the complete opposite of Hikakin and Hajime Syacho in Akinator, who will it come up with?

There’s an app and website called Akinator.

It’s a game where you imagine a person, then answer a series of questions about them, and somehow it figures out who you’re thinking of.

It can even guess people you wouldn’t expect, which makes it really surprising and a lot of fun to try.

Riddle Karuta

[Board Game] This is what New Year’s is all about!!! [Riddle Karuta] Part 1

When it comes to New Year’s, it’s karuta time! Let me introduce “Riddle Karuta,” a game that excites both adults and kids.

In this version, the reading cards are riddles, and the picture cards are the answers to those riddles.

For example, the riddle card says, “What kind of neck comes out of your mouth?” and the picture card shows a yawn (in Japanese, ‘akubi’—a play on words with ‘kubi’ meaning neck).

You might end up memorizing the answers after playing many times, but since it’s karuta, the fun is in grabbing the cards.

It’s also great fun to think up riddles together and make your own original karuta set.

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kepiko

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Geister

[Board Game] A Serious Deception Game That Makes You Lose Faith in Humanity [Geister]

Geister is a game where you advance while capturing your opponent’s pieces, like in shogi.

You use blue “good” ghosts and red “bad” ghosts.

First, place four blue ghosts and four red ghosts in any arrangement you like on the eight squares on your side.

Arrange them so your opponent cannot see which colors are where.

Then, take turns moving one ghost one square at a time.

If you move onto a square with an opponent’s ghost, you capture it.

You win if you are the first to capture four of your opponent’s blue ghosts.

However, if you capture four red ghosts, you lose.

There’s another way to win: if you manage to move even one blue ghost out through your opponent’s side of the board, you also win.

It’s a real brain-teaser of a game!

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SAKI

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Spinning a top

[Revised Edition] How to Spin a Top (How to Wrap the String) [How to Spin the Top]

Because a spinning top twirls around, it has been interpreted as a symbol of money circulating, and it has long been cherished as a lucky charm at New Year’s in the hope of improving one’s finances.

Besides the ordinary top you typically imagine, there are various kinds such as beigoma and gyroscope tops, so it might be fun to collect each type.