Electric Turnip
  • Blog
  • Stories
    • Story 000
    • Story 001
    • Story 002
    • Story 004
    • Story 007 - Unfinished
    • Story 008
    • Story 010 - BattleWagon
    • Story 012
  • Images
    • Adventure Caddie concept gallery
    • Page Design Gallery
    • Older Work
  • 5FEAT Video
  • Videos
  • Game Experiments
    • Climb
    • Super Shapetoy
    • TurboGarbageTruck
    • 031 - Best Games - Enchanter
    • 033 - Shader Test
  • Contact

352

7/29/2019

0 Comments

 
Best Games - UNO

I don’t think I will get much into the rules of UNO. If you are reading this, you have probably played the game and you already have a pretty good idea how it works. You know that it is a card shedding game where you have to match the color or number of the last played card. You and the other players keep taking turns slapping down cards out of your own hand while trying to make everyone else hold onto as many cards as possible. If you win a round, the cards your opponents are holding count toward your point total. You know that you have to call out ‘UNO!’ when you have one card left. The game almost demands that you and every member of your family / friend group unearth their most ruthlessly nitpicking selves, ready to punish anyone who forgets to call out ‘UNO!’. You know that it is like a lot of other card games, but it is also strangely more accessible than most other card games. You have probably been beaten by an 8 year old.
What you may not have noticed is that UNO has a built in balancing system. A fun balancing system. 
Most competitive card games have a sort of skill curve built into them. Players who understand the systems more deeply will tend to beat players who are just starting out. The random chance of the card draw keeps the game interesting for anyone playing at higher levels. The only problem with that is, with a game like Poker as an example, other than pure chance there is no way for a less skilled player to beat a more skilled player. There is a ‘good’ way to play and an endless variety of ‘less good’ ways to play. 
UNO, on the other hand, has a few different paths to winning. Most players starting out will want to shed their higher value cards first and only hold on to a selection of lower value cards and action cards. This ensures that even if you don’t win a round, you won’t be providing many points for the person who does. This is sort of the beginner mode, and if you play it cleanly and consistently, you will probably win just as many rounds as other people at the table. Not quite luck based, but far from a deep strategy game. The simplicity and viability of this play style makes UNO an easy card game for kids to pick up.
On the other end, UNO is a game where you can count cards, bluff, flat out lie, devise fiendish card traps to dump unreasonable amounts of cards on other players, and did I mention lie. The rules not only allow lying, they offer ways for players to penalize anyone they catch lying. When you play this way you are not guaranteed success over players conservatively shedding cards and laying down actions. One way is not better than the other. ONE WAY IS NOT BETTER THAN THE OTHER.
This is where you say ‘Then UNO isn’t a game of skill. It’s just all luck! If more experienced players can’t always trounce less experienced players this game is garbage!’.  Poor deluded player. That’s not the point. UNO is a game where, no matter your experience level, you can be competitive. If you are just learning the rules, and play a clean game, you’re gonna do okay. If you have played a lot of UNO you can bend the rules, bluff often, and draw cards when you don’t need to in the hopes of filling another players hand with a real lumber yard’s worth of cards. You can be devious. You can be nasty. You can make the game fun in the way that you want.
When you are playing a card game as a family, or playing with younger kids, there is often a ‘Let the Wookie Win’ problem. Kids hate to lose. No one likes to lose, but kids really really hate it. UNO is a game where you don’t really have to worry about that. Once they understand the rules, that kid is going to win a decent amount of the time anyway. Everyone can play however they want and it will still always come down to the last 3 or four cards. UNO is like the Mario Kart of card games. While that does mean that a certain demographic will have trouble taking UNO seriously, and I would suggest never betting money on a game of UNO, it does one thing right that a lot of other games get wrong.
No matter who is playing UNO, they can have fun.
That alone puts UNO up there among the best games.

​
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    June 2012
    October 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010

    Categories

    All
    Adventure Caddie
    Best Games

    RSS Feed

Owen McManus
  • Blog
  • Stories
    • Story 000
    • Story 001
    • Story 002
    • Story 004
    • Story 007 - Unfinished
    • Story 008
    • Story 010 - BattleWagon
    • Story 012
  • Images
    • Adventure Caddie concept gallery
    • Page Design Gallery
    • Older Work
  • 5FEAT Video
  • Videos
  • Game Experiments
    • Climb
    • Super Shapetoy
    • TurboGarbageTruck
    • 031 - Best Games - Enchanter
    • 033 - Shader Test
  • Contact