4 Colors is a Free Card Game Inspired by Uno (2023)

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Game Screenshot

Game Description

This is a popular card game for kids where each player tries to run out of cards first.

How to Play

Dealing

Players can select to play against 1 to 3 competitors. The goal of the game is to lay down all your cards first.

Players are dealt 7 cards each & playing goes clockwise.

Playing

You may lay cards which either match the color (yellow, green, red, or blue) or the number (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) of the card in the middle.

If you can not match either then you are forced to draw another card. The card you draw from the reserves may be laid to the waste pile before your turn ends.

If you have a play you can make you must make it rather than drawing another card without making the move.

If the entire deck is used during play the top card on the discard pile is set aside and the remaining cards are shuffled to recreate a new deck to pull cards from. Play then continues normally.

Remember to Call Uno

Immediately after laying your second to last card you have to click the 1 button on the screen or else you will be dealt 2 more cards.

Special Cards

There are a number of special cards including a color wildcard, cards which force competitors to pick up more cards, and cards which reverse direction of the playing field.

Picture	Name	Value	Quantity	Description
	Wild	50	4	Can be laid on any card. Can be played on any card even if you have other valid plays. Allows you to change the suit color to any color.
	Wild Draw 4	50	4	Can be laid on any card. Allows you to change suit color. Skips the next player's turn while dealing them 4 cards. In this video game this card can only be used if you have no other valid plays. In the official card game you can play this if you have a numerically matching card as the one shown atop the waste pile but not if you have a card of the same color in your hand.
	Draw 2	20	2 in each color 8 total	Can be laid on any card of the same color, or on a +2 card of another color. This card skips the next player and deals 2 cards to their hand.
	Reverse	20	2 in each color 8 total	Can be laid on any card of the same color, or another reverse card. This changes the rotation direction of the playing field. When you are playing with only 2 players in the game you get the next lay as well (otherwise the card would serve no purpose in 2-player games). This makes the card act effectively like a skip card.
	Skip	20	2 in each color 8 total	Can be laid on any card of the same color, or another skip card. This skips the next player's turn.
	Number card	face value	2 in each color (except1for 0)	Can be laid on cards of the same color or cards of the same numerical value. While there is 2 of each numerical card value for each suit color, there is only 1 of each zero. Excluding the action cards there are 19 total cards in each color. Including the 3 action cards above there are 25 total cards in each color.
	Uno button	N/A		You must press this immediately after laying your second from last (penultimate) card. If you do not quickly press it you will be dealt 2 additional cards.

Strategy

When you have many cards in your hand try to play cards which are the most over-represented so that you have a diversity of lay options possible.

For example, if you have 7 cards and 4 of the cards in your hand are red you would likely to want to lay a red card if you can.

Similarly, if you have 7 cards and 3 of the cards are valued at 5 you would want to lay one of those fives if you can.

If you keep multiple colors and numerical values in your hand until you have few cards left you increase the odds you will be able to make a play on the next hand.

If you are fairly certain what color a player with 1 card left is holding you can intentionally make a suboptimal strategic play for your hand to try to prevent them from being able to win the game. For example, if they have 1 card left and you believe it is yellow you could throw a blue 4 on a yellow 4 even if you were holding multiple other yellow cards in your hand.

The action cards are exceptionally powerful when you play against a single computer opponent because whenever you reverse the deal direction, skip their hand, or deal a +2 or +4 wild card it is your turn once agian. Dealing them multiple +2 or +4 cards in a row puts a lot of points in their hand while clearing cards out of your hand.

Scoring

Winning a hand is called "going out" and is accomplished by getting rid of all your cards.

Only the winner of the hand scores points & their score is based on the sum of the value of cards held in the hands of losing players.

• Numerical cards are worth their face value.
• Wild cards are worth 50 points.
• Other action cards (reverse, skip turn, and deal 2 cards) are worth 20 points each.

If player 1 got rid of all of their cards while player 2 has cards valued at 8, player 3 has cards valued at 12, and player 4 has cards valued at 25 then player 1 will score 45 points.

If a player goes out using a Wild Draw 4 or a Draw 2 card the next player must accept those cards into their hand for computation of total points.

Hands are repeatedly dealt until a player reaches a cumulative game score of 250 total points or higher.

The star near each player indicates how many points they have scored from prior hands.

In addition to the online multiplayer version of this game mentioned above, we also offer a near-identical version of the game on this page with monument pictures on the cards. That game is named Four Colors Monument Edition.

History of Uno

American barber Merle Robbins invented the game in 1951 to help explain Crazy Eights to his son Ray. Mr. Robbins took out a mortgage on the family home to raise $8,000 to print 5,000 decks of the card game. He sold the decks in his barber shop while his son shared them with students at school. In 1972 International Games acquired the rights to the physical card game for $50,000 plus royalties of 10 cents per copy sold.

The deck comes with 108 cards:

• 4 Wild
• 4 Wild Draw Four
• 2 Skip of each color (8 total)
• 2 Draw Two of each color (8 total)
• 2 Reverse of each color (8 total)
• 1 zero for each color (4 total)
• 2 of each numerical value from 1 to 9 for each color (72 total)

The game originally had a scoring goal of 500 points.

Penalties

• If you do not press the Uno button in this game when you should 2 cards are added to your hand. In the physical version of the game the player after you can call you out for failing to call Uno, but if you catch it before they call you out there is no penalty.
• This video game does not allow an illegal use of the Wild Draw Four, but in the physical card game the player receiving the 4 cards can challenge the play to ensure the person who laid the Wild Draw Four did not have any cards of the same color in their hand. If the player was holding other cards of that color then the person who laid the Wild Draw Four must eat the 4 cards. If they in fact did not have any cards of that color then the person challenging the play must pick up 6 cards instead of 4.

Gameplay Variations

Using the print cards there are 3 additional house rules options players can choose to incorporate into gameplay.

• Progressive Stacking Uno: If there are penalties like Draw 2 or Draw 4 the next player can lay the same card, which causes the subsequent player to have to draw twice as many cards. This feature can be chained consecutively until such a play is no longer possible. So, for example, if 4 players in a row laid a Draw 2 card then the next player would have to draw 8 cards if they did not have a Draw 2 to lay. While these variations are part of the "House Rules" game variations described by Mattell, in 2019 Mattel stated this was not part of standard Uno rules.
• Seven-O: Every time a "7" is played, the player who played the "7" trades their hand with another player of their choice. Every time a "0" is played all players pass their current hand forward in the direction of play to the next player.
• Jump-In: If you have the exact same card numerical value in the same color you can play it even if it is not your turn. The game then continues as though that player just played their regular turn. If you Jump-In with 2 consecutive cards in your own hand you must lay them one at a time. The second identical player using a Skip, Reverse, Draw Two, or Wild Draw 4 cancels out the first & then the second card plays like normal.

The Enduring Popularity of Uno

The official rule book for Uno is published online at service.mattel.com/instruction_sheets/UNO%20Basic%20IS.pdf

The simplicity of the game makes it a family favorite to share nostalgia and experiences between generations, making the game popular over a half century later.

Amazon.com sells variations of the game like Uno Flip, Uno Dare, Uno Attack, Uno Shwodown, Minimalist Uno, and oversized giant cards. Spin off games like Dos have also been released.

Amazon sells cross branded versions of the game themed after Star Wars, Minions, Disney parks, Super Mario, Mariokart, Jurassic World, Minecraft, The Office, Harry Potter, Schitt$ Creek, Space Jam, Mickey Mouse & Friends, Hot Wheels, Sonic the Hedgehog, Lion King, Shark Week, wilderness, Barbie, emoji, Marvel Avengers, Trolls, BTS, Rick and Morty, Masters of the Universe, Frozen, USA, Incredibles, Zelda, Dragon Ball, Cars, Saved by the Bell, American Girl, Toy Story, Ryan's World, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Chhota Bheem, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Spider-Man, cricket, MLB, Pokemon, The Simpsons, Arby's, Justice League, Ford, WWE, Marvel Avengers, BTS, Thank You Heroes, The Muppet Show, Tokidoki, Care Bears, Hairspray, Batman, Shreck, A Bathing Ape, Elvis, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Peanuts, Hanna-Barbera, Hello Kitty, Superman, Star Trek, Rugrats, Drew House, Vivetta, Nike Zoom, Pixar, Tokyo Olympics, Bearbrick, and hundreds of other partners.

The game is so popular that most of the variations mentioned above have hundreds to thousands of reviews each, with the core game having over 43,000 Amazon reviews. In May of 2022 the game was ranked as the #1 dedicated card deck game on Amazon.com, and was #37 in the broader toys and games category.

Decks tend to cost around $10 with rare or out of print runs going up to $20 or $30, while overproduced sets can sell for as low as $4 to $6 each.

Rare limited edition sets celebrating artists and illustrators like Jean-Micel Basquiat, Shepard Fairey, Keith Haring, and Nina Chanel Abney sell on eBay for upwards of $60 to $80.

Sold out versions of the co-branded game promoting Gary Vaynerchuk's VeeFriends have sold for over $300 on eBay, even though the original price on Mattel's website was $25.

Click the following links to explore Uno card games on Amazon or eBay, or go to the Mattel Creations website to see which new exclusives they currently have for sale.

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