UNO Party! Card Game: Rules for How to Play

UNO Party! is a new version of UNO made for larger groups of players. Most of the rules are the same as normal UNO, but there are a couple of differences and additions. For those already familiar with UNO, check out the Speed Play, Point Taken Card, Wild Pile Up Card, and Wild Drawn Together sections for the new rules exclusive to this version of UNO.

Objective of UNO Party!

The objective of UNO Party! is to be the first player to get rid of all of the cards from your hand.

Setup for UNO Party!

Remove the Direction Tracker Card and Link Cards from the rest of the cards.
Choose one player to be the dealer. They will shuffle the rest of the cards together.
Deal seven cards to each player.
Place the rest of the cards face down on the table to form the Draw Pile.
Place the Direction Tracker Card in the middle of the table with the clockwise side face up. The Link Cards should be placed near the Direction Tracker Card.
Flip over the top card from the Draw Pile to form the Discard Pile. If the card is an Action Card, ignore its effect. Flip over another card to start the Discard Pile.
The player to the left of the dealer starts the game. Play will proceed clockwise to start the game.

Playing UNO Party!

On your turn you will try to play one of the cards from your hand to the Discard Pile. To play a card from your hand it needs to match one of the following from the top card on the Discard Pile.

Color
Number
Symbol

If you can play one or more cards from your hand, choose one to place on top of the Discard Pile. If the card is a number card, nothing special happens. Should you play an Action card, you will take the corresponding action (see our UNO Party! card meanings post).

Playing A Card — The top card on the Discard Pile is a red three. Along the bottom are some examples of cards that the player could play on their turn. The blue three could be played because it matches the number. The red seven matches the color. You could play the four wild cards because they match every other card.

If you do not have any cards in your hand that you can play, you will take the top card from the Draw Pile. You will add this card to your hand. Should you be able to play this new card, you can play it immediately.

When you have a card that you can play from your hand, you will usually want to play it. If for some reason you have a card that you can play but you don’t want to, you don’t have to play it. You will take the top card from the Draw Pile. The only card you will then be able to play is the card you just drew.

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

Once you have played or drawn a card, your turn will end. The next player in turn order will then take their turn.

Speed Play

One of the new mechanics in UNO Party! is the ability to speed play.

Should the top card on the Discard Pile be a number card that matches both the number and color of one of the cards in your hand, you may immediately play the card to the Discard Pile. You can do this even if it is not currently your turn. Play will then continue with the next player in turn order from your position.

Speed Play Example — The top card on the Discard pile is a red seven. As this player has a red seven in their hand, they can play the card immediately even it is not currently their turn.

You need to make sure you play the card before the current player plays their card. If they play a card before you are able to play your matching card, you lose the ability to play the card.

Should you play a non-matching card using the speed play rule, you will take the card back into your hand. As a punishment for incorrectly playing the card, you will also have to take one card from the Draw Pile.

Calling UNO

Should you only have one card left in your hand, you should call out “UNO” as quickly as possible. You need to call out UNO to alert the other players to let them know that you are close to winning the game.

If another player catches you not saying UNO before the next player starts their turn, you will have to take two cards from the Draw Pile.

Calling UNO in UNO Party! — This player only has one card left in their hand. They should call out UNO as soon as possible. If they don’t and another player catches them, they will have to draw two cards.

Winning UNO Party!

The game ends when one of the players play the last card from their hand. The player who plays the last card from their hand wins the game.

Alternative Scoring

Instead of just playing one hand to determine a winner, you can use the alternative scoring rules in order to play several rounds.

When a round ends, the player that played the last card from their hand takes all of the cards from the other players’ hands. They will then score points for each of the cards.

Number cards – Face value
Draw Two, Point Taken, Reverse, Skip – 20 points
Wild, Wild Draw Four, Wild Drawn Together, Wild Pile Up – 50 points

Scoring in UNO Party! — At the end of the game these twelve cards were left in the other players’ hands. The winner of the round will score 22 points from the number cards (2 + 4 + 7 + 9). They will score 20 points each from the four cards in the second row. They will also score 50 points for each of the wild cards in the bottom row. The winner of the round will score a total of 302 points from these cards.

You will keep a running total of each players’ score. The game ends when one player scores 500 or more points. The player that scored the most points wins the game.

Number of Players

While UNO Party! is meant to be played with larger groups (it has a recommended player count of 6-16), it is possible to play the game with less than six players. Some of the new Actions cards don’t work quite as well as they would with larger groups though. You could also end up playing hands that could take a long time as you are forced to keep drawing cards.

UNO Party! FAQ

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.

Year: 2022 | Publisher: Mattel | Designer: NA | Artist: NA

Genres: Card, Family, Party

Ages: 7+ | Number of Players: 6-16 players | Length of Game: 15-30 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Moderate-High

Components: 224 cards, instructions

If you are interested in other UNO games, check out our complete list of UNO spinoff games. For other board and card game how to plays/rules and reviews, check out our complete alphabetical list of board game 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.