Finally Played: Uno

Continuing our current series of big name games that remarkably I've never played, we return with the classic card game and cause of family arguments everywhere, Uno!

It seems everyone I talk to has played Uno at least once so it's strange that I've gone this long and have never picked up a deck. If I'm totally honest from what I picked up about the game second-hand, there wasn't much of a draw to play it. It seemed like a very basic game without much going for it.

When I told my eleven year old daughter that I had never played it, however, she wanted to put that right straight away. As luck would have it I was gifted a set of Pokemon Uno cards last Christmas so I got the deck out and asked her to teach me how to play.

I went into the game with an open mind but there was a part of me that was expecting to dislike it. Try as I might though, I couldn't bring myself to form a negative opinion about the game. This wasn't due to the game itself, which on the face of it was on the boring side, but instead was thanks to the way in which I was taught.

It was clear from the start that Uno is a very special game for my daughter and it was a privilege to be taught by someone who cared so deeply for the game. It is the first time that my daughter has taught me the rules to anything so it made me quite emotional as she carefully lead me through the different rules and what actions the different cards did. It is a game that she was clearly passionate about and this was infectious, I found myself really enjoying our game despite it being far more basic than what I usually like.

As she was teaching me, she spoke at length about how this game was important to her as during the Covid-19 pandemic, when she was being home-schooled, she would play it most evenings with her mother. This was a difficult time for her, as it was for everyone, being separated from her friends and the routine of the school day, so it was really touching to hear her talk about Uno as something that gave her joy. It was a little bit of routine to her day that kept some feeling of normality during a deeply troubling time.

We played board games as a family during the lockdown but Uno was something my daughter had with just her mother and it was clear to me as she taught me how to play what a special place the game held for her. She talked at length about the rules that she and her mother used, and how these differed from the rules that each of her step siblings played, and that her step father had a different set of rules still. We laughed that these home-brewed rules didn't help them win at all and talked about how she felt the rules she played with her mum are the correct ones.

Regardless of how I feel about the core game of Uno, it occurred to me that this was the perfect example of how games can bring us closer together and how they are sometimes worth more than the sum of their parts. I don't often like giving bad reviews. I prefer to give recommendations for games than go into the negatives. However, this experience gave me a better appreciation that all games, no matter the objective quality, have the power to improve our bonds with each other and strengthen our community. Uno is a popular game, and it must be so for a reason.

Is it a game I would play with just anyone? No, probably not. Will I play it with my daughter again? Almost certainly.