UNO Yellowstone Card Game: Rules for How to Play

Objective

The objective of the game is to be the first player to play all of the cards from your hand before the other players.

Setup

Choose a player to be the dealer. They will shuffle the cards and deal out seven to each player.
Place the rest of the cards facedown on the table. This forms the Draw Pile.
Flip over the top card from the Draw Pile to create the Discard Pile. If you flip over an Action card, ignore its action and flip over another card.
The player to the left of the dealer starts the game. Play moves clockwise to start the game.

How to Play UNO Yellowstone

On your turn you will try to play a card from your hand to the Discard Pile. To play a card it has to match one of three elements 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 elements, you can play it to the Discard Pile. You can only play one card on your turn. Should you play an Action card, you will take the corresponding action (see the UNO Yellowstone Card Meanings section for details on what each card does). Play then passes to the next player in turn order.

Playing a card to match a green two — The top card on the Discard Pile is a green two. The next player could play the cards at the bottom of the picture. The green eight matches the color. The red two can be played because it matches the number. The final three cards can be played because they are wild cards.

Playing a card to match a reverse card — The top card on the Discard Pile is a Reverse card. You could choose to play your own Reverse card because it matches the symbol.

If you have a card in your hand that you can play but you don’t want to play it, you can choose not to play it. If you choose not to play a card, you will treat the rest of your turn like if you didn’t have a card that you could play. You cannot play the card you chose not to play for the rest of your current turn.

Drawing a Card

Should you not have a card that you can play (or choose not to play a card), you will draw the top card from the Draw Pile. If this new card matches one of the elements of the top card on the Draw Pile, you can play it immediately. Otherwise you will add the card to your hand.

After drawing the card and potentially playing it, your turn ends. Play passes to the next player in turn order.

If the Draw Pile ever runs out of cards, take the cards from the Discard Pile. Shuffle these cards to form a new Draw Pile.

UNO Yellowstone Card Meanings

Number

Number cards do not have any special ability 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

Whenever a Draw Two card is played, the next player in turn order has to draw two cards. They also lose their turn.

You can play a Draw Two on top of another Draw Two, or a card that matches its color. If another player plays a Draw Two against you, you have to draw the two cards and lose your turn. You cannot play your own Draw Two card in order to pass the punishment onto another player.

Reverse

Should you play a Reverse card, the direction of play flips. If play was moving clockwise, it will now move counter-clockwise. If turn order was moving counter-clockwise, it will now move clockwise.

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

Skip

The Skip card makes the next player in turn order lose their turn.

You can play a Skip card on top of another Skip card, or a card that matches its color. If you lose your turn due to a Skip card, you cannot play your own Skip card in order to avoid the punishment.

Wild

The Wild card matches all other cards in the game. Therefore you can play it at any time.

When you play the card, you get to choose the color for the Discard Pile. You can pick any of the four colors. This includes the color the Discard Pile was when you played the card.

Wild Draw Four

The Wild Draw Four card is wild so it can be played on top of any other card. There is one catch to the card though. You cannot play the card if you have another card in your hand that matches the color of the Discard Pile. Wilds count as matching the color of the Discard Pile.

Since the card is wild, the player who plays it chooses the color for the Discard Pile. The chosen color has no impact on any future challenge of the card.

The next player in turn order then has two choices.

First they can accept that the card was played correctly. In this case they will draw four cards and lose their next turn.

Challenging the Wild Draw Four

Otherwise the player can challenge the play of the card.

The challenger gets to look at the hand of the player who played the Wild Draw Four. They are looking for a card that matches the color of the Discard Pile before the Wild Draw Four was played.

If they do not find a card that matches the Discard Pile’s previous color, the player played the card correctly. In this case the challenger has to draw six cards and they lose their turn.

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

If they do find a matching color card though, the player played the card incorrectly. The player who played the Wild Draw Four has to draw the four cards. The challenger does not have to draw any cards, and they don’t lose their turn.

Playing a Wild Draw Four incorrectly — The player had a red card in their hand which matches the color of the Discard Pile. They played the Wild Draw Four incorrectly. They will have to draw the four cards instead of the challenger.

Wild Yellowstone Brand

You can play the Wild Yellowstone Brand card at any time since it matches all other cards.

When you play the card you will see who is loyal to the Dutton name. Following the current turn order, each player has to show a card from their hand that has the Yellowstone Brand on it. The rules are not clear on whether the player who plays the card also has to show one of these cards to avoid the punishment. The symbol is printed in the corner of some of the cards.

If you have one of these cards, you will show it to the other players and you avoid any punishment.

Any player that does not have one of these cards in their hand, is forced to draw two cards.

A Wild Yellowstone Brand card has been played. The first player had the green three in their hand. This card features the Yellowstone Brand symbol. They won’t have to draw any cards. The next player did not have any cards in their hand with the Yellowstone Brand. Therefore they have to draw two cards.

The card is also wild so the player that plays it chooses the color for the Discard Pile.

Calling UNO

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

If you do not say UNO and another player catches you, you will have to draw two cards. The other players must challenge you before the next player takes their turn though.

Winning the Game

The first player to play the last card from their hand, wins the game.

Scoring

Instead of determining the winner based on one hand/game, you can choose to keep score.

Once a player plays the last card from their hand, they will collect all of the cards left in the other players’ hands. The rules for UNO Yellowstone don’t specifically say what happens if the last card forces the next player to draw cards. In most versions of UNO if the last card forces a player to draw cards, those cards will be drawn before the winner gathers up all of the cards. The winner scores points from the cards as follows:

Number cards – Face Value
Draw Two, Reverse, Skip – 20 points each
Wild, Wild Draw Four, Wild Yellowstone Brand – 50 points each

Scoring in UNO Yellowstone — The winner of the hand gathered these cards from the other players’ hands. They will score eleven points for the number cards (1 + 3 + 7). The Draw Two, Reverse, and Skip score 20 points each. Finally the Wild, Wild Draw Four, and Wild Yellowstone Brand card each score 50 points. They will score a total of 221 points.

Keep track of the points that the players score each round. The first player to score 500 or more points in the game, wins.

UNO Yellowstone 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 cards
4 Wild Draw Four cards
4 Wild Yellowstone Brand cards
Instructions

As for cards with the Yellowstone Brand, there are 36 cards that have the symbol. For each number 1-9 of each color, one of the two cards have the symbol while the other doesn’t have it.

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

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.