David and I have recently begun playing UNO quite frequently, nearly every night. The new UNO decks come with 3 wild cards to write your own rules into and we have been coming up with fun new rules to play with ever since. Check out some of the house rules that we regularly play by, the rules we wrote into the cards, and some other house rules we don’t play with but thought would be fun.
Wild Card Written-In UNO Rules
Card 1 – This wild card is also used as either a skip or a reverse, you pick
Card 2 – Call out the color you want and call out a number as well. The next player has to follow that color, but if they match the number you called as well, you pick up a card.
Card 3 – SPITE! (This card is my favorite.) In a 2 player game, this card is a wild +2 card. In a 3 or more player game, pick a player you’d like to spite and they must pick up 4 cards. Play continues from the player who played this card.
Card 3 was recently revised. Previously, SPITE! for 3+ players entailed picking a player to spite and then every time a +2 or a +4 is played on a different player, the spited player also picks up a card. This continues until the next wild card is played (excludes +4 cards). This became very confusing to explain and we found that we often forgot SPITE! was even played and the spited player wouldn’t end up picking up the extra cards, so we revised it to be much simpler.
House Rules We Play With
1 – The official UNO rules say to pick up just one card per turn, which can be done even if you have a card to play. When we play, if you have a playable card you must use it. If not, you continue to pick up cards from the deck until you have a playable card. We’ve picked up half the deck in some games before picking up a green.
2 – Color Match. We actually stole this rule from DOS, UNO’s second card game. (It’s not as fun.) If you match the color and the number of the last card played, the player who played it picks up 1 card. This rule does not apply to cards that are not basic number cards.
3 – In 2 player games, we use the reverse card as a skip. It can also be used to steal a person’s turn. For example, when player one plays a reverse and they reach for another card to play, player two can play a reverse card from their hand and steal player one’s turn. In 3+ player games this rule does not apply.
4 – The swap hands card must be played at the first opportunity. If it is dealt into a player’s hand, it must be the first card that player plays. If it is picked up from the deck, it must be played immediately. If it is picked up in response to a +2 or a +4 card, it must be played on the next turn.
5 – You cannot go out of the game on a wild card. This includes +4 cards.
6 – If you yell RED instead of UNO, it counts. This is due to the fact that David did this exact thing during one of our games together. He didn’t even have a red card in his hand. He hadn’t even just played a red card. There were no red cards in sight but he yelled RED instead of UNO and now we officially count it 🙂 Still one of the funniest moments of us playing UNO together
Other Fun House Rules
1 – If a +2 card is played on you and you also have one, you may play it instead of picking up 2 cards. Play passes to the next player who must pick up the total number of cards.
2 – If a +2 or a +4 is the first card flipped for play, all players pick up that number of cards before starting.
3 – Players must go around the circle one time before any special cards can be played (skip, reverse, +2, +4, or wild cards).
