Alcides Fonseca

Every time I play Uno, I have to ask the owner of the game (or the group), exactly which rules are we playing with. There are multiple variations of the rules, and yet, I never played with the correct ones, explained in the video below.

However, I still like to play with my own set of rules, that gathers several variations that I’ve experience and found to be fun. In particular:

• If you have multiples of the same number/symbol, you can play them all at once. This is useful for changing the color, and speeds up the game. You can play multiple skips to skip multiple players. And yes, you can play multiple +2 or +4 at the same time. But it might come back to bite you (see rule below).
• If someone plays a +2 (or multiple), you can play another (or multiple) +2, to pass the accumulated punishment to the next player. This can go around the table and come back to you, and that makes it even more fun.
• If someone plays a +4 (or multiple +2 and a final +4), they have to announce the color. If you have a +2 of that color, you can play it (along with other +2s). This forces players to keep track of what other players have or do not have, making it more of a game.
• Even if it is not your turn, you can always play a card that is exactly the same as the one on the top of a discard pile. This allows the flow of the game to be interrupted, and the next player is the one after the player that “stole” the turn. This makes the game much more immersive, but requires all your attention. You cannot do other stuff while playing with this rule. Additionally, you should force people who play multiple cards at once to do it one at a time (with one hand), so they can be interrupted by others.
• Finally, when you only have one card, you have to say Uno , like Uno Restaurant or Uno Airport. This is a brain twister on people who are used to play uno. They will just say uno, and then they get the 7 cards.

Yes, these rules might make the game longer, but on average they make it much shorter and will give you plenty of laughs. Do try it and let me know if it worked for you or not.

The plan worked. Kids have started attending local events and volunteering for community activities — just for a chance to meet the ojisan from their cards. Participation in town events has reportedly doubled since the game launched.

— Tokyo Weekender

I’m not a fan of gamification, but prioritizing community members over pokemons or football players is a win in my book.

Hexagons are quite popular in boardgames, given the high number of neighbours, which increases the number of possible actions by players.

Only triangles, squares, and hexagons can tile a plane without gaps, and of those three shapes hexagons offer the best ratio of perimeter to area.

— Simon Willison

Which makes hexagon the shape used in Uber’s H3 geographical indexing mechanism, which can be visualized at https://wolf-h3-viewer.glitch.me/

I am an avid fan of boardgames. Spending most of my day in front of a computer screen, I enjoy the social fun of being around a table, getting my ass whooped at any random game.

Given the current imprisonment status, I have resorted to skype/zoom together with online platforms (which I have used for years for remote 2-player games. While some online platforms automate several actions, most are less intuitive than their physical counterpart.

Board Game Platforms

• BoardGameArena — one of the best platforms, which some games requiring you to be a premium to open a table (not necessarily play). Usually overpopulated. Free titles I suggest: 6nimt, StoneAge, Takenoko, Jaipur, Tzolkin, Keyflower, Quantum, The Palaces of Carrara,
• Yucata — similar platform. Free to play in two simultaneous game. The UI quality depends on the game itself. Games I recommend: Carson City, El Grande, Glen More, Jaipur, Kashgar, Machi Koro, Navegador, Pompeii, Port Royal, Snowdonia, StoneAge, The Castles of Burgundy, The Voyages of Marco Polo
• BoardgameCore For “real” gamers. I would recommend Antiquity.
• SlothNinja Few deep games. I have only played Tammany hall
• BoardSpace Mostly abstract games, but has some euros like Containers and Medina
• SpielByWeb has Bus, Hacienda, Reef Encouter, Santiago, Tikal and Wallenstein.
• BrettspielWelt Really weird interface, with a lot of non-translated german.
• Boiteajeux While BrettspielWelt is the german boardgame platform, Boiteajeux is the french counterpart.
• Tabletopia, 3D. — Very “manual” in the sense that you have to move cards online.
• Table Top Simulator, 3D win/mac/linux and VR — similar to the previous one, but requires software install.