No two games are ever the same.
The ultimate UNO construction kit. A friendly, cooperative game where each player remolds the rules towards a balanced and enjoyable game. Or towards a game of unimaginable convolutions. Good for imaginative people, good for children and the child-hearted, not so good for lawyers.
A few years ago, during a wonderful summer spent in Santa Cruz, California, a curious group of friends boldly added a few house rules to the standard game of UNO. Along the way, they blended the original and modern standard rules, clarified timing issues and scrapped the scoring for their late night games. When they allowed the dealer to add a new rule with every new game, Dealer's Choice UNO was born.
Ascending Rules UNO is the result of that exploration, an amalgam of the best five rules to jumpstart every post-midnight gaming session. Every game is different, as the players build up a "cooperative" vision of the best UNO rules. You can get a taste of ARUNO by looking over some of our previous games.
Since then, Ascending Rules UNO has become a favorite game of friends and family, from young teenagers to fifty-ish game players. Each game is altered to the characters and moods of those who play, becoming whimsical one night, and strategic (imagine!) with another group of players.
Synapsis of the rules
Ascending Rules UNO is based on the modern standard rules of ARUNO with a couple clarifications, and five new rules. Read the Basic Rules for clarification of these rules and the clarifications.
- Dealer Deals: the dealer deals as she sees fit.
- Face Up, Face Down: the dealer may turn some cards face up during the shuffle and deal. face up cards are visible to all players even when part of someone's hand.
- Dealer Adds a Rule: the dealer adds a rule of his choice before the hand begins.
- Infinite and Finite: players draw until they can play until the deck is reshuffled, then players only draw one card as per the modern rules.
- Five Second Rule: the current player has only five seconds to take the next action.. passing, playing, drawing. otherwize, he must draw a card.
Mutating card games from Mars!
There are quite a few other card games involving mutating rules. I have played Mau a few times, but discovering the rules through trial and error can be daunting for a casual player.
I have come across, but never played Eleusis, another card game in which the players try to guess the rule that the dealer makes up. Unlike in Mau, players only have to deal with one unknown rule at a time. The winner is the one who guesses well enough to play out correctly.
Bartog is similar to Dealer's Choice Uno but played with regular playing cards and has no hidden rules.