Flexing the Rules with Uno in 2023

Since 1992 families around the world have been yelling a single word at each other at irregular intervals. They have also been yelling “You didn’t say it! You didn’t say it!” for just as long. This year, popular card game Uno is flexing it’s muscles with some new cards and some new rules.

Uno made headlines in 2019 when the company flexed on social media by weighing in on the decades old family rule debate concerning the stacking of “Draw” cards. Anyone else still play with the stacking rules?

The classic deck was last adjusted in 2018 when two new cards were added to provide a variation on the traditional Uno wild card;  “Wild Shuffle Hands” and “Wild Customizable,”and the current version of Uno consists 108 cards in the deck. With “Wild Shuffle Hands” the player card collects all the cards held by the other players, then shuffles and re-deals them. With the “Wild Customizable” card, Uno made room for house rules and the cards are blank for your imagination. Either type of these new cards can be played on any turn and is worth 40 points when a player goes out.

The newest version of the game; UNO Flex, is still based on the classic rules but with a “flexible attitude”. This second round of special cards will let players change the color of a card, skip more people, and force the drawing of more cards.

• • The “Power Card” allows players to change color in order to make a match, thus  a Blue 5 can become a Yellow 5 in one flex. But only if it has a green ‘check’; a red ‘X’ means they have to wait.
  • A “Flex Draw Two” causes every other player to have to draw one card, while a “Flex Draw 4” lets the current player choose which person has to draw 4 cards.
  • A “Flex Wild All Draw” forces every player except the active player to draw 2 cards.
  • A “Flex Skip” skips all the players, basically functioning as a “take another turn” kind of card.

Honestly, I didn’t know how my kids would take to the game until a week after it had arrived. I was wondering out loud where my new game was and my husband told me that the kids had it and had been playing it all week. Without my knowing, they had latched on, learned the rules, and been playing several times a day. Well anything they can teach themselves and enjoy that much is a winner in my book. They are 13, 11, and 7 right now, and so the independence of the game is definitely a bonus. The increase of changing colors in the game does add to the sibling tension that comes with any game play, but they all really like that ability so the annoyance passes quicker than I would have expected.

I’ve joined them several times now, and unlike other variations of classics that I’ve played, these new cards definitely do add to the fun. While we might stick to classic Uno more often than not, the new power cards and flex action cards do add even more flexibility and twists to the game and make for a really fun family game night.

GeekMom received a copy of Uno Flex for review purposes, but purchased our other dozen or so editions from various retail outlets!