Hanafuda

Hanafuda is a minigame added to Utawarerumono: Lost Frag in the 7/16/2020 game update. In it, you play Koi-Koi against a new character named Matsuri or your own allies to earn Kifuda (wooden good-luck talismans).

Using Kifuda, you can purchase 200 of the Ascension Souls of all 1-star and 2-star characters (except for event reward characters), in addition to a smaller number of the Ascension Souls of two 3-star characters. The available 3-star characters are rotated weekly on Monday at 5:00 JST. Since November 2020, each month one of each of the tier-three pact materials, Pact Price: Heart, Pact Price: Land, and Pact Price: Sky, can be purchased for 10,000 Kifuda apiece.

The Hanafuda shop also sells character and mirror XP items, skip tickets, and a variety of rewards related to Hanafuda itself, such as game room decorations and background music.

Starting a Match
You need Kifuda to play Hanafuda. You can earn up to 3000 Kifuda from winning matches per day, buy up to 2500 Kifuda with zen from the shop per day, and earn an unlimited amount from missions, with 1000 available from daily missions.

To play Hanafuda, tap the Hanafuda tab, then the big red button that says 対戦相手選択 (Opponent Selection.) On this screen, you can choose to play against either Matsuri or any character you have. Playing Matsuri allows you to wager higher amounts of Kifuda, while your characters each have a number of one-time missions to be cleared. Matsuri is also the only character who is voiced by default (Minagi's voices can be purchased from the shop.)

After choosing an opponent, choose a difficulty from the three options of Ume, Take and Matsu. Difficulty determines the amount of Kifuda wagered, from 30 for an Ume match against one of your characters, up to 750 for a Matsu match against Matsuri. It does not seem to measurably affect how well your opponent plays or anything else. However, Matsuri is harder than other characters; she matches special cards more aggressively and rarely Koi-Kois (in fact, she will generally only pass up an opportunity to Agari if she's behind in the 3rd round and it would lose her the game.)

You can 'play' Hanafuda against opponents other than Matsuri with skip tickets, which simulates a match between an AI playing in your stead and the normal game AI; this does not guarantee wins. The win rate seems to be about 70%, but losing streaks are possible. If you can spare the time, save your skip tickets and use autoplay instead.

You can use autoplay by starting a match, expanding the menu at the top left, and toggling the middle button (close the menu afterwards.) This takes more time than skipping, but also plays more intelligently and can beat opponents with reasonable (though not 100%) reliability. It's also usable versus Matsuri. This option is fairly safe to use when trying to earn daily Kifuda, clear victory missions, or clear 'easy' yaku missions (the ones other than Five Brights.)

Winning the match will refund your wager and reward you with bonus Kifuda equal to the number of points you scored, boosted by a difficulty-based multiplier. Losing will get you nothing. If you lost, the amount of Kifuda you wagered will be added to your daily limit, so you will never end up unable to recoup your losses (unless you give up, run out of time before the daily reset at 5AM JST, or run out of Kifuda entirely and can no longer afford to play.)

Once your daily Kifuda limit hits zero, you will neither win nor lose Kifuda from playing further matches; however, you can still buy Kifuda from the shop and complete Hanafuda-related missions.

Please note that you will always receive the full winnings of the final game that takes you over the daily limit, allowing you to exceed it. If you have the time, it is beneficial to arrange your last game to begin very near your limit, on a high-stakes difficulty that will allow you to maximize your winnings.

How to Play
Koi-Koi is played with a Hanafuda deck of 12 suits (also known as "months".) The four cards of each suit depict the same flower and contain two special cards among them as well. At the beginning of the game, 8 cards are dealt to each player and 8 cards are placed face up on the table.

The game starts with the "oya," or player who goes first, being randomly chosen; in successive rounds, the winner of the previous round goes first (or if the round was a draw, the oya stays the same as before.)

To play Koi-Koi, you match (if possible) the suit of one card in your hand with one card on the table, then match one card newly drawn from the deck with one card on the table. Both cards that are matched go to your play field. If you play or draw a card that has no match, it is placed on the table instead, where you or your opponent may match it later. Conversely, if you play a card and all 3 of the other cards in the same suit are on the table, you'll match all 4 of them at once.

The objective of the game is to form yaku (combinations) with your matched cards. You can score multiple yaku during a round, as well as bonus points for adding additional qualifying cards to most yaku.

In Lost Frag, cards that can be matched glow slightly in your hand—gold for a normal match, and red if they will form or add to a yaku. You can tap these cards to see which cards on the table match. When matching a card would complete a yaku, the name of the yaku will be written on the bottom of the card during this stage. You can cancel the selection by tapping anywhere other than the matching cards if you change your mind.

If you have no cards that can be matched, you'll see a Japanese message instructing you to play a card of your choice, which will be placed face up on the table. Whether in this situation or not, be careful tapping cards that are not glowing; they will be played to the table immediately!

When you form or add bonus cards to any yaku, you can choose between 上がり (Agari / Finish) to end the round, or こいこい (Koi-Koi! / Come, come!) to continue playing if you want to try for more points. (An exception to this is if your hand is empty, in which case you will declare Agari automatically.) However, your opponent can win after you Koi-Koi. If this happens, you get no points at all from the round, and lose points to your opponent instead. Achieving a higher point total increases the amount of Kifuda you'll win from the match, as well as giving you a more secure lead in case you lose an upcoming round, so it may be worth it to take risks.

Winning after your opponent Koi-Kois will award you points equal to double your yaku score, as will winning with a total yaku score of 7 or higher. Keep this in mind when making your decisions. A victory that meets both conditions will award quadruple points.

If both players empty their hands with no one declaring Agari, the round ends in a draw, even if one player has previously declared Koi-Koi.

The game continues for 3 rounds, or until either you or your opponent hit zero points due to losing. If both players have 30 points at the end of the final round, the match is a draw and your wager will be refunded.

Pay attention to your total points. You need to have at least as many points as your opponent at the end of the 3rd round or you'll lose the game, even if you won that round.

Strategy
You or your opponent will occasionally win a round without even playing a card. Praise or curse your luck when this happens and don't overanalyze it; it's 100% random.

Some of the fastest yaku to get are Hanamizake, which is the "sakura blossom banner" and the sake cup card (the latter is easily identifiable by Gachatara inside it,) and the Tsukimizake yaku, which is the moon and the sake cup. You can try for both these yaku at once; the sake cup will count for both. However, they earn a respectable 5 points on their own, so you can use either one to end a round ASAP with a decent point gain.

If your opponent steals part of your sake, look to the 3-card yaku instead. These include Blue Ribbons (all 3 blue ribbons,) Red Ribbons (all 3 red ribbons with writing, not the blank ones,) Ino-Shika-Chou (the boar, deer and butterfly animal cards,) and Three Brights (any three of the five hikari cards - these are the crane, sakura blossom banner, moon, phoenix, and Orishiro*.)

Feeling lucky? You can go for one of the big hands. The most valuable is Five Brights, which is similar to Three Brights but requires all five cards. You'll need to Koi-Koi to form this since you'll form Four Brights first. Speaking of which, there's also Four Brights, and Ribbons (5 ribbons of any kind, worth only 1 point on its own but stacks with other ribbon yaku.)

Finally, there are some basic 1-point yaku which will usually arrive close to the end of the round: Tane (any five tane cards, which are the wooden bridge, the sake cup**, and animals other than the crane and phoenix) and Kasu (any five pairs of 'plain' cards.)

In addition to trying to form yaku, play defensively when necessary. Unless victory is imminent and you don't plan to Koi-Koi afterwards, keep an eye on your opponent's side of the field and what yaku they are close to forming, and match cards that they need when possible. Special cards (particularly the 3 cards used in Hanamizake and Tsukimizake, which your opponents can win with very quickly and suddenly, just like you can) are the prime target for this.

As each round always ends after 16 cards are drawn, 8 cards remain unrevealed in the deck at the end of the round, which means that yaku which require specific cards may be impossible to form during any given round. If you're waiting on Orishiro to complete your Five Brights, she may never come out, and you should consider settling for less if you're down to only a few cards in your hand.

* Orishiro, aka 'Rainman' or 'Ono no Michikaze' in a normal Hanafuda deck, is quirky and does not count as a hikari'' card for forming Three Brights, only Four and Five Brights. In addition, she lowers the value of the Four Brights yaku by 1 point. Technically this is a separate yaku called 'Rain Four Brights.' ''

** The sake cup card can count as both kasu and tane.

Finally, if you've played Koi-Koi before, take note of these possible differences in Lost Frag's implementation from the rules you know:


 * The Tsukifuda (all four cards of the same suit) and Tan Choufuku (both Blue Ribbons and Red Ribbons at once) yaku do not exist.
 * There is no Oya-Ken; when a round is played to a draw, neither player gets points. The oya does stay oya for the next round, however.
 * Aside from its artwork, the Lightning card is not special in any way.
 * There is no "Rainy Day" rule. Playing Orishiro or cards from her suit does not affect the Hanamizake or Tsukimizake yaku.

Missions
A large number of missions related to Hanafuda are available. Most of them reward Kifuda, but you can also get Jewels and a few rare items from completing some missions.

All missions which require a win generally require you to win the match, not just a single round. Using skip tickets and autoplay also works for these (if you win.) If you're lucky, using those may even clear the character missions to get 90 points and/or certain yaku, but this occurs totally at random and the chance of it happening is somewhat low, particularly for the more difficult yaku like Five Brights.

Four daily Hanafuda missions are available, all of which reward Kifuda:

The character missions are identical for each character and are as follows:

There is a similar set of missions available by playing against Matsuri, listed under the Normal Missions tab. Her cumulative-wins missions reward double the Kifuda of other characters. A key difference is that her 90 points mission and yaku missions must be done on Matsu difficulty (the rightmost one.) Of special note is the Pact Price: Sky reward for forming Five Brights against her.

Some additional normal missions are available:

(More missions may be locked behind these ones; this has yet to be confirmed.)