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Feb 2nd, 2017 at 20:09:51 - Uno (Other) |
Conclusion
Overall, Uno is a very fun and fast paced game, but it can also be quite punishing to the player. What works well is the game mechanics; because they are so simple, it is very easy for any player to learn how to play the game. Furthermore, the game mechanics allow the game to move swiftly, which keeps players engaged during their experience. The rules, however, are where the game falls a little short. First, having a ‘wild-draw-four’ card or any ‘action’ card played against you is completely random, and there is nothing a player can do to prevent the action from taking place (besides challenging a ‘wild-draw-four’ card, but this is very risky and punishing). Basically, one must cross their fingers and hope they don’t have any ‘action’ or ‘wild-draw-four’ cards played against them. It is especially annoying when a player is down to his or her final card and a ‘draw-two-action’ card is thrown into play. Additionally, the scoring can be quite irritating; while it offers a simple objective to get to, it can also take a while for the game to come to completion. Moreover, no one wants to do any math and keep a tally of each player’s score. Fortunately, one of the rules that does work is the safe word. It offers an extra twist to the experience and can make games fun and exciting. Ultimately, Uno’s pros sill outweigh its cons, making the game a fairly enjoyable experience.
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Jan 31st, 2017 at 19:10:40 - Uno (Other) |
Gameplay
Uno (card game): Saturday, January 28th, 2017 (Game One):
My three friends and I decided to play Uno Saturday night (making 4 players total). I was the dealer and dealt 7 cards to everyone, including myself. I put the ‘draw’ deck in the middle, flipped a card over into the ‘discard’ deck, and started the game. Some of my friends had never played the game of Uno before, but I noticed that they could quickly catch on. At the end of the first round, I was down to 2 cards left; however, this all changed when my friend played a ‘wild-draw-four’ card against me. I decided to challenge his hand because I thought he had another card that he could play. Unfortunately, I lost the challenge and had to draw 6 cards. My friend who played the ‘wild-draw-four’ card ended up winning the round, and we counted his score. He earned 107 points because one of my other friends had a wild card. We reset the round; I reshuffled all the cards and dealt 7 to each of my friends. After about an hour of playing, we had finally finished the game; this took many rounds, and each round can last a good bit of time (especially with a small number of players). One of my friends had won the game with 500 points, and another one of my friends was a close second with 474 points. I finished in third with 385 points. We decided to stop playing and call it a night.
Uno (card game): Tuesday, January 31st, 2017 (Game Two):
On Tuesday night, six of my friends wanted to play the game of Uno (making it 7 players). This time, we decided to play without the scoring; instead, we just decided that the first person to win 3 rounds is the winner. We made this decision because it felt as though the time it took to garner 500 points was a little too exhausting, and no one wanted to do any math. This time I was not the dealer, and I got to play the game without shuffling and keeping score. Fortunately, this game was much more in my favor. At the beginning of the first round, I was dealt 2 normal ‘wild’ cards, which offers a huge advantage by allowing me to always have a card to discard. Consequently, I ended up winning the round by holding on to my normal ‘wild’ cards until they were the last cards in my hand; I was lucky I didn’t get a ‘draw-two-action’ card played against me. We continued playing several rounds, one in which my friend forgot to say the safe word and had to draw 2 cards. Fortunately, this allowed me to catch up to him and win the game, securing my third and final winning round. This game only lasted about 30 min, which was much shorter than the last time I played. This is not only because we disregarded the point system, but also because we had more players (each round seemingly went by faster in comparison to Saturday night).
This entry has been edited 4 times. It was last edited on Feb 2nd, 2017 at 20:30:06.
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Jan 30th, 2017 at 21:28:46 - Uno (Other) |
Abstract
While Uno can be a very fun and addictive card game, there are a few drawbacks that can leave the player a little frustrated. Before discussing which elements of the game are successful and which elements are not, this GameLog will explain the rules of Uno and how the game is played.
Uno: Game Description
Uno will be described via the following elements of the game:
I. The Players
II. The Resources
III. The Objectives
IV. The Mechanics
V. The Rules
Each of these elements brings together the ‘big idea’ of what the game is about.
I. The Players
Uno allows anywhere from 2-10 players to play the game. One player must be the dealer of the game, but being the dealer does not prevent him or her from playing.
II. The Resources
The standard edition of Uno comes in a specialized deck of 108 cards and is much different from a standard deck of 52 cards. Each card in the deck is printed with two attributes: a symbol and a color. Symbols can either be the digits 0-9 or an ‘action’ symbol, which is discussed in greater detail in the ‘Rules’ section. The card color, on the other hand, can be yellow, blue, red, or green. Additionally, there are cards known as ‘wild’ cards that are exceptional to all other cards; they have a special symbol and color that uniquely define them (usually the symbol is a circle divided into four pieces, and the card color is black). ‘Wild’ cards are discussed in-depth in the ‘Mechanics’ and ‘Rules’ sections. At the beginning of the game, each player is dealt 7 cards and should prevent anyone else from seeing their cards (although not showing cards isn’t necessarily a rule). After the cards are dealt, the remaining deck of cards are placed in the middle of all the players; this deck becomes the ‘draw’ deck. To begin the game, the dealer must take a card from the ‘draw’ deck and lay it facing upwards, revealing what the card is to all players; this stack of cards facing upwards becomes the ‘discard’ deck. Both the ‘draw’ deck and the ‘discard’ deck will be covered in the ‘Mechanics’ and ‘Rules’ sections later on.
III. The Objectives
The primary objective of the game is to be the first player to discard all their cards. Doing this will allow the player to garner points, and the first player to reach 500 points wins the game. This means that there are multiple rounds in the game of Uno, and each round is complete after a player has gotten rid of all their cards. To reset successive rounds, the dealer must shuffle all the cards and once again deal out 7 cards to each player. This process continues until a player has reached 500 points and won the game.
IV. The Mechanics
Once the dealer takes a card from the ‘draw’ deck and puts it into the ‘discard’ deck, the game officially begins. The player to the left of the dealer goes first (this assumes that all the players have formed a circle around the ‘draw’ and ‘discard’ decks, which generally tends to happen in any card game). During each player’s turn, he or she can make 3 moves:
1.
The player can discard one of their cards if it matches the top of the ‘discard’ deck by symbol or color. For instance, if the top of the ‘discard’ deck is a 1, then the player can lay down any card with a 1 (regardless of the color) on top of the ‘discard’ deck. As another example, if the top of the ‘discard’ deck is blue, then the player can lay down any card that is blue (regardless of the symbol) on top of the ‘discard’ deck.
2.
The player can discard a ‘wild’ card on top of the ‘discard’ deck, regardless of symbol or color. For instance, if the top of the ‘discard’ deck is a green colored card with the symbol of 7, and the player has no matching symbol (7) or color (green) in his or her hand, then he or she can lay down a ‘wild’ card on top of the ‘discard’ deck if they have one.
3.
The player can draw a card from the ‘draw’ deck, whether they have a card to discard or not. For example, if the top of the ‘discard’ deck is a red colored card with the symbol of 9, and the player has no matching symbol (9) or color (red), then he or she is forced to draw a single card from the deck (unless they have ‘wild’ card of course).
After a player has made one of these 3 moves, his or her turn has ended, and the player to the left of the current player goes next. This will continue until a player has discarded all their cards.
V. The Rules
Along with the game mechanics comes a set of rules that must be enforced. These rules can be divided into 4 parts: the ‘action’ cards, the ‘wild’ cards, the ‘Uno’ safe word, and scoring.
1. The ‘action’ cards
Aside from the ‘wild’ cards, the ‘action’ cards are like any other card of the game; they have a color and a symbol. However, the symbol on the card is not any of the digits 0-9. Instead, the ‘action’ cards have a special symbol representing what that ‘action’ card can do. There are 3 types of ‘action’ cards in the game of Uno: ‘reverse’, ‘skip’, and ‘draw-two’.
The ‘reverse-action’ card reverses the order in which players take their turn. For instance, if a ‘reverse-action’ card is played at the beginning of the game, then the player to the right of the current player (instead of the player to the left) will be the next player to take their turn. Consequently, each player to the right of the current player will be the next player to take their turn. This order must be maintained until another ‘reverse-action’ card has been played.
The ‘skip-action’ card skips the next player’s turn. This means that if the next player is to the left of the current player, then he or she will be skipped and cannot take their turn. Alternatively, if the next player is to the right of the current player, then he or she will be skipped and cannot take their turn. The individual who comes after the player being skipped will be the next player to take their turn.
The ‘draw-two-action’ card forces the next player to draw 2 cards from the ‘draw’ deck and lose his or her turn. This is like the ‘skip-action’ card, only it is more punishing.
Again, it is important to note that ‘action’ cards are played like ordinary cards. For example, if the top of the ‘discard’ deck is a green colored card with the symbol of 7, then the player can discard a green ‘action-skip’ card due to matching colors. Similarly, if the top of the ‘discard’ deck is a blue colored card with the symbol of ‘action-skip’, then the player can discard a green ‘action-skip’ card due to matching symbols.
2. The ‘wild’ cards
‘Wild’ cards are exceptional to all other cards in the game. These cards can be played on top of any card in the ‘discard’ deck, regardless of symbol or color. There are two types of ‘wild’ cards: normal ‘wild’ cards and ‘wild-draw-four’ cards.
Normal ‘wild’ cards allow the player to declare whatever color they want the ‘discard’ deck to be. For instance, if a player lays down a normal ‘wild’ card and declares the color to be blue, then the next player must lay down a blue colored card on top of the ‘discard’ deck. If the next player has no blue colored card or ‘wild’ card, then he or she must draw a card from the ‘draw’ deck. Consequently, every subsequent player must draw a card from the ‘draw’ deck if they do not have a blue colored card or a ‘wild’ card to discard.
‘Wild-draw-four’ cards are a little more complicated. These cards not only change the color of the ‘discard’ deck, but also force the next player to draw 4 cards and lose his or her turn. There is a catch, however. When a ‘wild-draw-four’ card is played, the next player has the right to challenge the playing of the card if he or she believes that the current player could have played another card in the current color. The player of the ‘wild-draw-four’ card privately shows his or her cards to the challenging player. If the challenge is successful, then the player who played the ‘wild-draw-four’ card must draw 4 cards; otherwise, the challenging player draws 6 cards and still misses their turn. Regardless of the outcome, the ‘wild-draw-four’ card remains on the ‘discard’ deck, and the color of further play is the color named by the player who played the card.
3. The ‘Uno’ safe word
When a player is down to their second to last card, then he or she must say out loud the safe word, “Uno”, before laying down the card. If a player lays down his or her next-to-last card without calling "Uno" and is caught before the next player in sequence takes a turn (i.e., makes one of the 3 moves discussed in ‘Mechanics’ section), then they must draw 2 cards from the ‘draw’ deck. If the player is not caught in time or remembers to call "Uno" before being caught, he or she suffers no penalty.
It is worth noting that the player has plenty of time to say the safe word; he or she does not have to say “Uno” immediately at the beginning of their turn. Instead, the player can safely take their time to say the safe word before laying down their second to last card. It is only when the card touches the ‘discard’ deck that the player can be punished if he or she did not use the safe word.
4. Scoring
The winner’s score is determined after each round. Every player who didn’t win the round must hand their remaining cards to the dealer, and the dealer counts the score based on the following table:
Card Score
Digits 0-9 Face Value (i.e. a 9 card is worth 9 points)
‘Action’ Cards 20 points each
‘Wild’ Cards 50 points each
This score must be written down to keep track of each player’s score between rounds. Once again, the first player to 500 points wins the game.
This entry has been edited 13 times. It was last edited on Feb 2nd, 2017 at 20:24:35.
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