UNO Friends Card Game: Rules and Instructions for How to Play

Objective of UNO Friends

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

Setup for UNO Friends

Choose a player to be the dealer. They will shuffle all of the cards.
The dealer deals seven cards to each player.
They will then place the remaining cards facedown on the table to form the Draw Pile.
Flip over the top card from the Draw Pile and place it next to the pile. This card forms the Discard Pile. If the card you flipped over is an Action card (not a number card), you will flip over another card.
The player to the left of the dealer starts the game. Play will pass in a clockwise direction to start the game.

Playing UNO Friends

On your turn you are trying to play a card from your hand to the Discard Pile. In order to play a card it needs to match one of the following criteria from the top card on the Discard Pile:

Color
Number
Symbol

If you have a card in your hand that matches at least one of these criteria you may play it to the Discard Pile. If you play an Action card, you will take the corresponding action (see the corresponding section below).

Playing a card to match a blue four — The top card on the Discard Pile is a blue four. Along the bottom of the picture are five potential cards you could play on your turn. You could play the blue six because it matches the color. The red four could be played because it matches the number. Finally you could play the Wild, Wild Draw Four or the Wild The One Where You Draw cards since they are all wild.

Playing a card with a matching symbol — The top card on the Discard Pile is a Reverse card. You could choose to play your own Reverse card since it matches the symbol of the top card on the Discard Pile.

Drawing a Card

You may choose not to play a card from your hand even if you have one that you can play. In this case you will draw a card. You cannot choose later in your turn to play the card that you chose not to play.

Should you not have a card in your hand that matches the top card on the Discard Pile, you will take the top card from the Draw Pile. Look at the card to see if you can play it (following the same criteria from above). If you can play the card you just drew, you can play it immediately. If you can’t play the new card, you will add it to your hand.

Should the Draw Pile run out of cards, you will shuffle the Discard Pile to form a new Draw Pile.

Whether you play or draw a card, your turn ends. Play passes to the next player in turn order. To start the game play moves in a clockwise/left direction.

Cards of UNO Friends

Number

Number cards have no special effect in the game. You can only play them if they match the color or number of the top card on the Discard Pile.

Draw Two (+2)

The Draw Two card features +2 in the corners of the card.

The next player in turn order draws the top two cards from the Draw Pile. They will also lose their turn.

You can play a Draw Two card on top of another Draw Two card or a card that matches its color. If you are forced to draw two cards, you cannot play a Draw Two card in order to avoid drawing two cards or force the next player in turn order to draw more cards.

Reverse

A Reverse card has two arrows pointing in opposite directions in the corners.

When you play a Reverse card, the current turn order reverses. If play was passing clockwise, it will now move counterclockwise. If it was moving counterclockwise, it will now move clockwise.

You may play a Reverse card on top of another Reverse card or on a card that matches its color.

Skip

A Skip card features a circle with a line through it in the corners.

When you play a Skip card, the next player in turn order loses their turn.

You may play a Skip card on top of another Skip card or on a card that matches its color. If you are skipped, you cannot play a Skip card to avoid losing your turn.

Wild

A Wild card features an oval in the corners with four colored sections.

Wild cards match all other cards in the game. Therefore you can play them at any time. When you play a Wild card you will choose the color of the Discard Pile. You can choose any of the four colors including the color that the pile was before you played the Wild card.

Wild Draw Four

Since the Wild Draw Four card is wild, it matches every other card in the game. There is one restriction for playing the card though. You can only play a Wild Draw Four card if you have no other cards in your hand that match the current color of the Discard Pile. Wild cards are considered matches for the current color.

When you play the Wild Draw Four card you can choose the color of the Discard Pile. You can choose any of the four colors. The color you change the Discard Pile to has no impact on the outcome should a player challenge your play of the Wild Draw Four.

After you play a Wild Draw Four card, the next player in turn order has a choice to make.

Playing a Wild Draw Four — The current player has played a Wild Draw Four on top of a yellow seven. The next player has to decide whether they are going to draw four cards and lose their turn, or if they are going to challenge the play of the card.

First they can choose to accept the play of the card. In this case they will draw four cards and will skip their turn.

Challenging the Play of a Wild Draw Four

If the player thinks you played the card incorrectly (you had a card in your hand that matched the color of the Discard Pile), they can challenge the play of the card.

The player who played the Wild Draw Four card shows the challenger all of the cards from their hand. They will do this so the other player can verify whether the card was played correctly.

If you played the card correctly (you did not have any cards in your hand that matched the Discard Pile’s color), the challenger now has to draw six cards instead of four. They will also lose their turn.

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

If you played the card incorrectly (you did have a card in your hand that matched the Discard Pile’s color), the challenger no longer has to draw cards and they don’t lose their turn. Instead you have to draw the four cards since you played the Wild Draw Four incorrectly.

Playing a Wild Draw Four card incorrectly — The player who played the Wild Draw Four did have a yellow card in their hand. Therefore they played the Wild Draw Four incorrectly. Since they played the card incorrectly, they will have to draw the four cards instead of the next player.

Wild The One Where You Draw

The Wild The One Where You Draw card has the Central Perk logo in the corners.

When you play the Wild The One Where You Draw card, you will choose a character from the show (Chandler, Joey, Monica, Phoebe, Rachel, Ross). The next player in turn order must keep drawing cards until they draw one that has the character you chose on it. They will add all of the cards they draw to their hand.

Playing a Wild The One Where You Draw card — A player played a Wild The One Where You Draw card. They chose Joey. The next player ended up having to draw four cards until they picked up a card that has Joey on it.

The player who plays the card also chooses the color for the Discard Pile. They can choose any of the four colors including the color it was before they played the Wild The One Where You Draw card.

The Wild The One Where You Draw card is wild so you can play it on top of any other card.

Calling UNO

When you only have one card left in your hand, you should say “UNO” as quickly as possible. This is done to let the other players know that you are close to winning the game.

If you forget to say UNO and another player catches you, you must draw two cards from the Draw Pile. They must challenge you before the next player takes their turn.

Winning UNO Friends

The first player to play all of the cards from their hand, wins UNO Friends.

Variant Scoring Rules

If you want to play several hands of UNO Friends, you can choose to use the variant scoring rules.

Each hand ends when a player plays the last card from their hand. That player collects all of the cards left in the other players’ hands. They will score points for each of these cards as follows:

Number cards – face value
Draw Two, Reverse, Skip – 20 points each
Wild, Wild Draw Four, Wild The One Where You Draw – 50 points each

Scoring in UNO Friends — At the end of a hand these nine cards were left in the other players’ hands. The winner of the hand will score points as follows. They will score 18 points from the number cards (6 + 3 + 9). The Draw Two, Reverse, and Skip cards will score 20 points each. Finally the Wild, Wild Draw Four, and Wild The One Where You Draw cards will each score 50 points. The winner of the hand scores 228 points.

Keep track of how many points each player scores each hand. The first player to score 500 or more points wins the game.

UNO Friends FAQs

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

Year: 2023 | Publisher: Mattel

Genres: Card, Family

Ages: 7+ | Number of Players: 2-10 | Length of Game: 10-20 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: High

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