Who Will Have Just One Card Left?
UNO is, in my opinion, one of those modern classics, falling in with games like Monopoly and Cluedo that everyone has heard of and everyone seems to have an opinion on but not everyone has actually played.
If you’re new to UNO or have played one of the alternative versions (and there are many of them out there) but never the original game, here’s a quick guide on the game and my thoughts to get you started.
Game Unboxing and Setup
UNO is possibly the easiest game to unbox and set up. Inside the box is a paper rules sheet and just over 100 cards including coloured number cards and colourless wild cards which form your deck. You will first off want to remove the blank cards, these are included so you can create your own customizable wild cards or replace any cards that may get damaged or misplaced over time, so it’s a good idea not to include these in play right away. Then give the cards a really good shuffle and deal seven to each player, finally turning one card from the top of the deck face up in the middle to begin play. If the middle face up card is NOT a number, flip a new one until a number is found. You’re now ready to play UNO.
Who Will Have Just One Card Left?
UNO is, in my opinion, one of those modern classics, falling in with games like Monopoly and Cluedo that everyone has heard of and everyone seems to have an opinion on but not everyone has actually played.
If you’re new to UNO or have played one of the alternative versions (and there are many of them out there) but never the original game, here’s a quick guide on the game and my thoughts to get you started.
Game Unboxing and Setup
UNO is possibly the easiest game to unbox and set up. Inside the box is a paper rules sheet and just over 100 cards including coloured number cards and colourless wild cards which form your deck. You will first off want to remove the blank cards, these are included so you can create your own customizable wild cards or replace any cards that may get damaged or misplaced over time, so it’s a good idea not to include these in play right away. Then give the cards a really good shuffle and deal seven to each player, finally turning one card from the top of the deck face up in the middle to begin play. If the middle face up card is NOT a number, flip a new one until a number is found. You’re now ready to play UNO.
Gameplay Overview
Players take it in turns to play a card from their hand that matches in either colour, number, or action with the face up card in the middle, adding theirs to the pile, drawing a card from the deck if you can’t go, and play ends when one player runs out of cards, but not before that player has to announce “UNO” to the other’s when they get down to one card in hand. Failure to announce “UNO” at the correct time results in a penalty which almost always prevents the player from being able to win the following turn.
With UNO, play can continue as long as you like, with game rounds, each round ending when one player runs out of cards, and keeping track of who wins each round. Personally, when playing just myself and my son we tend to play best of three or best of five. When playing with my husband as well, we usually play with one deal or two deals each (so either three or six rounds). This is entirely down to you.
Many people like to introduce house rules into UNO and each version of UNO features slightly different cards so if you’ve played once or twice before there may have been slightly different rules to the ones on your rule sheet. For example, in UNO Super Mario, there’s a “star card” which bounces an action such as pick-up-four back to the person who played it. For this reason, it’s always a good idea to read through the rules before you play, and to play a few rounds before you decide what, if any, house rules you want to introduce, or what, if any, custom cards you would like to play with.
Personally, we haven’t added any custom cards into our UNO deck, but we do have a few house rules which change up gameplay a little, some of them have come from other editions of UNO and some have come from our own creation. Why not try some of them out?
- If a player fails to shout “UNO” with one card left, the penalty is four cards, not two as stated in the rules
- If a player accidentally says “UNO” when they have more than one card in hand still, the penalty is also four cards
- According to the rules, players who can’t go must draw a card, but if that card is playable you can play it immediately if you choose… sometimes we don’t allow that and players can not play any card they draw in the same turn, whether it goes or not
- Unlike the official rules, we (and many other players out there) often play that players can indeed stack their pick-up-two cards to force other players to pick up four, six, or more
- We also sometimes allow stacking of the pick-up-four cards too!
- The black/colourless wild cards come with the rule that you are only allowed to play these if they are the only cards in hand that you can play… sometimes we ignore this rule so you can play them at any time
- The rules also state that with the pick-up-four card, the person who plays it chooses the colour that will continue play. Sometimes we play with the rule that the person whose turn it is after gets to choose the colour of play instead
- Not our rule but a friend of ours plays a house rule that if you have two cards in hand that are both the same colour and number (eg two blue threes) you can play them both together at the same time
Final Thoughts
UNO is a great game for younger gamers, it’s one of the first games we ever taught our son and he learned it from around three years old, he loved it then and loves it now, as do many other children we know.
UNO is a really simple game to learn with many different options for creating your own rules to change gameplay.
You can play UNO in small groups of just two or three players and in larger groups of nine or ten, you can even play with more if you combine two decks of cards together.
The game is so simple to set up and relatively quick to play but you can play over and over again if you want to so whether you have just five minutes to spare or an hour you can enjoy a game of UNO.
UNO is easy to pack to take with you to play on the train or plane, in a tent or hotel, at the beach or up a mountain. It’s portable and lightweight meaning you can enjoy it almost anywhere.
My only downsides to UNO, and this is just my personal opinion, is that the box wasn’t built to survive when you play as much as we do and our deck is now in a plastic case as the original cardboard box has broken after many years of use, and that as with many games, if you play it too often, it feels repetitive. But don’t let those thoughts stop you enjoying UNO.
Zatu Review Summary
Zatu Score
90%
