A printable Hanabi clue-and-firework log lives or dies on the one claim nobody can prove from a finished table, because the whole game runs on one record nobody keeps: which clues were actually given, which hand slots each clue actually touched, and what each firework stack stood at when a card was played. The game ended with the team one point short of the next scoring band, and by the time the table argues about it nobody agrees on whether Dan's last played card really completed the blue firework, whether the blue clue from Ana touched two slots or three, or whether the number clue from Carla marked the card Dan played at all. A log sheet that records each turn's action with the clue type, the exact slots touched, the stack state before and after, and the clue tokens and fuses remaining is the only record that settles those arguments, and it is a record no one at the table is keeping, because the players are busy remembering what they were told, the clues are busy expiring from memory, and the played cards are busy stacking up in the wrong order.
Hanabi, for the seller who has never played it: a cooperative card game for 2 to 5 players in which the team builds five fireworks, one per colour, in ascending order from 1 to 5, without ever seeing their own cards. The base game has 50 cards, five colours with ten cards each, three 1s, two 2s, two 3s, two 4s, and one 5, and each player holds their hand facing outward so everyone else can see it, dealing five cards each with 2 or 3 players and four cards each with 4 or 5 players. On a turn a player must do exactly one thing: give a clue, discard a card, or play a card. A clue costs one of eight clue tokens, names either a colour or a number, and must touch every card in that player's hand matching the named colour or number. Discarding a card regains one clue token, and completing a firework regains one as well. Playing a card that is the next number in its colour's sequence adds it to the stack, but playing anything else discards the card and loses a fuse, and three misplays end the game, as does the deck running out with one final round each, or all five fireworks completed. The score is the sum of the top card of each firework, a perfect game is 25, and the scoring guide rates 11 to 15 as honorable and 16 to 20 as excellent.
The worked game on the log sheet ran four players, Ana, Ben, Carla, and Dan, with four cards each, through to a final score the table still argues about, and every argument traces back to one line of the log. The final stacks were red complete at 5, blue at 4, green at 3, yellow at 2, and white at 1, giving 5 plus 4 plus 3 plus 2 plus 1, a total of 15, an honorable result. Dan's last play was the disputed line: he played the card in his second slot believing it was the blue 5, which would have completed the blue firework, regained a clue token, and lifted the total to 16, an excellent result. The log's clue rows showed otherwise: Ana's earlier blue clue had touched Dan's first and second slots, so the second slot was blue, and Ana's earlier number clue for 4 had touched Dan's second and fifth slots, so the second slot was a 4, and the intersection of those two clues is a blue 4, a card already sitting on the blue stack, so Dan's play was a misplay, the card was discarded, the team lost its second fuse, blue stayed at 4, and the total stayed at 15 instead of rising to 16.
The final totals are where the table's memory fails and the log does not. The team scored 15, honorable, with one fuse still unspent and the deck empty, not 16, excellent, with a completed blue firework. Without the log, the table remembers the finish as Dan's blue 5 closing out the set and the team crossing into the next band; with the log, it is a blue 4 that was already played, a second fuse lost on a guess, and the fact that a single clue intersection was worth exactly the point the team needed, which is exactly why the final count is argued over: the guessed card alone told a different story about how well the team really played.
That is the sheet to sell: one row per turn with the player, the action, the clue type and the exact slots touched, the stack state before and after the play, and the clue tokens and fuses remaining, plus a per-player intersection box where a colour clue and a number clue that touch the same slot are combined into the one card that slot must be, plus a totals box adding the five stack tops separately before the grand total, because the separate stack tops are what tell the table whether a close score came from one finished firework or five half-built ones. Print the five colours and the numbers 1 to 5 as checklists on every row so a clue is ticked rather than written out, leave the stack tops in a stack box so a firework's height is never taken from memory, and add a small "a clue must touch every matching card" reminder at the top, because the most argued-over part of the game is not who gave the best clue but which slots a clue really touched. A buyer who runs a weekly game night does not need another Hanabi set; they need the record that ends the argument about the last one, and a clue-and-firework log that fits the game's own clue system is a download they reach for every single game.
Unofficial fan-made log sheet. Hanabi is a game by Antoine Bauza; this log is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher.
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