UNO Mario Kart Card Game Rules Explained With Pictures

Objective of UNO Mario Kart

The objective of UNO Mario Kart is to play all of the cards from your hand before the other players.

Setup

Choose a dealer who will shuffle the cards.
Deal seven cards to each player face down. Players can look at their own cards, but shouldn’t show them to the other players.
Place the remaining cards face down on the table to form the Draw Pile.
Flip over the top card from the Draw Pile to form the Discard Pile. If the revealed card is an Action card, ignore its ability and flip over another card.
The player to the left of the dealer goes first. Play will proceed clockwise.

Playing the Game

On your turn you will try to play a card from your hand. You will look at the top card from the Discard Pile and try to find a card from your hand that matches it. You may play a card if it matches one of three elements of the top card from the Discard Pile.

Color
Number
Symbol

Playing a card in UNO Mario Kart — The top card on the Discard Pile is a red one. Along the bottom are four cards that the next player could potentially play. The red two could be played because it matches the color. The green one can be played because it matches the number. You could play the final two cards because they are wild.

Playing a Reverse card on top of another Reverse card — The top card on the Discard Pile is a Reverse card. You could play another Reverse card because it matches the symbol.

If you play an Action card, it will have a special effect on the game (see the Action Cards section below).

Even if you have a card that you can play, you can choose not to play it.

Drawing a Card

If you don’t play a card, you will draw the top card from the draw pile. You will look at the card. If the new card matches the top card on the Discard Pile, you can immediately play it. If not, you will add the card to your hand.

When the draw pile runs out of cards, shuffle the Discard Pile to form a new Draw Pile. You will need to keep the top card from the Discard Pile in place so players remember what card that they are playing on.

After you play or draw a card, your turn ends. Play will pass to the next player in turn order.

UNO Mario Kart Card Meanings

Numbers

Number cards have no special effect on the game. You can only play a number card if it matches the color or number of the top card on the Discard Pile.

Draw Two

The Draw Two card will force the next player in turn order to draw two cards from the top of the Draw Pile. The next player will also lose their turn.

You can play Draw Two cards on top of other Draw Two cards, or cards that match their color. If a Draw Two card is played against you, you many not play a Draw Two card to avoid the punishment.

Reverse

The Reverse card changes the direction of play. If play was moving clockwise (left), it will now move counter-clockwise (right). If play was moving counter-clockwise (right), it will now move clockwise (left).

Reverse cards can be played on top of other Reverse cards, or cards that match their color.

Skip

When you play a Skip card, the next player will lose their turn.

Skip cards can be played on top of other Skip cards, or cards that match their color.

Wild Draw Four

Wild Draw Four cards are wild so you can play them on top of any other card in the game. There is a catch though. You may only play a Wild Draw Four card if you do not have any other cards in your hand that match the color of the top card from the Discard Pile. Wild Item Box cards count as matching the color.

When you play a Wild Draw Four, you will choose the color for the Discard Pile. You can choose any of the four colors. The color you choose does not impact a potential challenge to the play of the card.

After you play a Wild Draw Four, the next player in turn order has a decision to make. They can accept the play of the card. In this case they will draw four card, and they will lose their next turn.

Otherwise they could choose to challenge.

Challenging

If you challenge the play of a Wild Draw Four, the player who played the card reveals their hand to you (not to any of the other players). You will look at the cards to confirm whether the player played the Wild Draw Four correctly.

Should the player have no cards in their hand that match the previous color of the Discard Pile, the Wild Draw Four was played correctly. The challenger has to draw six cards instead of four and will lose their turn.

Playing a Wild Draw Four card correctly — The player who played the Wild Draw Four did not have any green cards in their hand. Therefore they played the card correctly. The challenger now has to draw six cards, and they lose their turn.

If the player had a card whose color matched the color of the top card of the Discard Pile, the player who played the Wild Draw Four will instead draw the four cards. The challenger does not have to draw any cards, and will take their turn like normal.

Playing a Wild Draw Four card incorrectly — The player that played the Wild Draw Four card had a green card in their hand. Therefore they played the Wild Draw Four incorrectly. They will have to draw the four cards instead of the challenger.

Wild Item Box

The Wild Item Box card acts as a wild and can match any other card in the game. Therefore you can play it at any time even if you have another card in your hand that you can play.

When you play the Wild Item Box card, you will turn over the top card from the Draw Pile and place it on top of the Discard Pile. If the card is an action card, you will ignore its normal action. Each of the cards in the game have an item pictured in the bottom left corner. Depending on what item is pictured on the card that was turned over, you will take an action. See below for full details of what each item does.

Playing a Wild Item Box card — After playing the Wild Item Box card, a red eight was turned over. The player will take an action based on the mushroom pictured on the red eight card.

After taking the action, the next player will have to play a card based off of the card that is now on the top of the Discard Pile.

If a Wild Item Box card is flipped over to start the Discard Pile at the beginning of the game, the first player will get to choose its color.

Mushroom (Red Cards)

The player who played the Wild Item Box card gets to take another turn. This is mandatory and not optional. If you don’t have a card that you can play, you will have to draw a card from the draw pile like any other turn.

Banana Peel (Yellow Cards)

The player who plays before the player who played the Wild Item Box card will draw two cards from the draw pile. Skipping your previous turn does not avoid this penalty.

Green Shell (Green Cards)

The player who plays the Wild Item Box card chooses one player. That player must draw one card.

Lightning (Blue Cards)

Everyone except for the player who played the Wild Item Box card has to draw one card from the draw pile. The player who played the Wild Item Box card will then get to take another turn.

Bob-omb (Wild Cards)

The player that played the Wild Item Box card has to draw two cards. As the top card is still a wild, the player who played the Wild Item Box card will get to choose its color.

Calling UNO

When you only have one card left in your hand, you must call out UNO. This is to alert the other players that you are close to winning the game.

If another player catches you not saying it, you will have to draw two cards from the draw pile. You must challenge the player before the next player begins their turn.

Winning UNO Mario Kart

The first player to play all of the cards from their hand wins the game.

Alternative Scoring

Instead of only playing one hand to determine a winner, you can choose to play several hands to determine the winner.

Each hand ends in the same way as the normal game. The player that won the hand will take all of the cards still left in the other players’ hands. The rules do not specify what happens if the last played card forces another player to draw cards. Most versions of UNO force the player to draw the cards before the winner collects the cards.

The winner of the hand will score points for each of the cards they collect as follows.

Number Cards – Face Value
Draw Two, Reverse, Skip – 20 points
Wild Draw Four, Wild Item Box – 50 points

Scoring in UNO Mario Kart — The winner of the hand collected these cards from the other players. They will score 17 points from the number cards (3 + 6 + 8). The Draw Two, Reverse, and Skip cards each score 20 points. Finally the Wild Item Box and Wild Draw Four cards each score 50 points. The winner scores 177 points this hand.

Keep a running total of the points that each player has scored. The first player to score 500 or more total points wins the game.

UNO Mario Kart FAQs

If you have any questions about how to play the game, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Components

19 blue cards (one 0, two each of 1-9)
19 green cards (one 0, two each of 1-9)
19 red cards (one 0, two each of 1-9)
19 yellow cards (one 0, two each of 1-9)
8 Draw Two cards (two of each color)
8 Reverse cards (two of each color)
8 Skip cards (two of each color)
4 Wild Draw Four cards
8 Wild Item Box cards
Instructions

Year: 2020 | Publisher: Mattel | Designer: Nick Hayes

Genres: Card, Family

Ages: 7+ | Number of Players: 2-10 | Length of Game: 10-30 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: High

For more board and card game rules/how to plays, check out our complete alphabetical list of card and board game rules posts.

Written By:

Eric Mortensen

Eric Mortensen is an owner and head writer on Geeky Hobbies since 2014. He is an avid board game player and collector with over 3,000 board and card games in his collection. Since 2014 he has written more than 1,100 board game how to play guides.