This popular card game might just get you cut out of your inheritance
Draw 4… but make it real life
Twenty-three-year-old Neeharika Nene lives in the UK for the most part, but each time she returns to India, there’s one thing she absolutely must do: play UNO with her aunt. No, this isn’t the sweet, wholesome reunion you think it is. For the past couple years, the two have been locked in a fierce clash. Once they plonk themselves at the dinner table, they play up to 20 rounds of UNO and don’t get up until they’re wiped out.
At one point, they grew so competitive they’d keep a meticulous log of their wins and losses in a notebook, even coining a rule of their own: the number of cards the loser was left with at the end of the game would be the number of points deducted from their score. Think: UNO with negative marking. “Whenever I go back to India, the notebook invariably comes out,” jokes Nene.
The point is, a game of UNO seems fairly innocuous… until it turns even the sweetest, most angelic person you know into a competitive monster. Slate magazine concurs that UNO is basically a full-blown war in the guise of “friendly competition”. Because, let’s be honest, has anyone ever played a calm, pleasant game of UNO? Has anyone ever not felt the urge to hurl the snack platter when their opponent whipped out the Draw Four card?
Unsurprisingly, UNO was literally born out of a fight. It was invented in 1971 by an Ohio barber who had an argument with his son about the rules of another game, Crazy Eights. To reach a resolution, he ideated and designed the original decks of UNO right at the family dinner table. Surely, a game invented in the throes of a fight wasn’t ever meant to be peaceful or family-friendly, was it?
Now, with the release of Uno: Show ‘em No Mercy in India, Mattel’s taken UNO to a whole new level, making it more brutal, cut-throat, and stressful than ever before. With its newly-introduced Discard All, Skip Everyone, and Draw 10 cards, this game is bound to ruffle some feathers and spark bitter feuds. “Regular Uno damn near broke up my family. Imagine Uno No Mercy,” reads one comment on TikTok. “Family game nights are about to get violent,” reads another.
Amidst the feuding and bantering, though, UNO is ultimately a litmus test of how good you are at… well, living. It rewards your risk-taking, tests your patience, encourages spontaneity, and allows for a healthy dose of pettiness on the side. To put it simply, if you’re good at playing UNO, you’ve probably mastered the game of life.
As an ode to the game that has brought us together and torn us apart, we’ve rounded up four life lessons we’ve learned from UNO.
UNO is the life coach you’ve always needed
Make it up as you go
Did you know you couldn’t officially stack Draw 2 cards until a few years ago? Or Draw 4, for that matter? And yet, UNO junkies are known to bend the rules, come up with their own interpretations, and some, like Nene, have coined entirely new ones. In fact, the card game is infamous for its “endlessly permutable house rules”.
Of course, life feels way easier when you’re sticking to the manual, but the real breakthroughs and ‘Eureka!’ moments happen when you raise the stakes, think out of the box, and muster up the courage to pitch even your most outrageous ideas. Whether you want to start a super niche business, go backpacking in an obscure town, or even remain single for the rest of your life, don’t shy away from breaking a few rules and living life on your own terms.
Be your own cheerleader
Remember that time you decided to go easy on your friend and they proceeded to hit you with a Draw 4? Or the time they looked you in the eye as they set down a Skip card, with no hint of remorse? The harsh truth—in UNO and in life—is that you don’t get brownie points for being a self-sacrificing martyr, and it can actually do more harm than good.
After all, if you’re burnt out, tired, frustrated, and resentful, you can’t possibly expect to be of real help to someone else, can you? So, treat your empathy like a precious reserve and dish it out sparingly—you’ll probably be better off for it and won’t end up begrudging your friend for winning after you gave up your chance to make her skip a turn.
When things get hard, zoom out
You’ve brought out a Reverse card, changed the colour with a Wild card, and tied it all up nicely by stacking four Draw 2 cards. But, at the end of the game, you’re still left with an absurd number of cards in each hand while all your friends gleefully call out ‘Uno!’. While it may be tempting to be a sour loser and bitterly proclaim that ‘it’s a stupid game anyway’, what truly speaks volumes about your character is your ability to smile gracefully, pat the winner on the back, and crack a self-deprecating joke or two about your rotten cards.
Plus, we’d say the real victory was the game night actually making it out of the group chat and getting your busy bee friends to assemble under the same roof (nothing short of a miracle, TBH). So, keep your eye on the bigger picture and stay true to what actually matters: spending time with your loved ones.
Put your listening ears on
We get it—you’re eager to shock everyone at the table with the Draw 10 card you’ve been nursing the whole game, so you fidget and rock back and forth until your turn comes around, only to discover someone already called out ‘Uno!’ when you weren’t paying attention. Now you can’t win first place anymore.
The point is, don’t get so caught up in planning out your next moves that you forget to actually focus on what’s happening in the moment. This doesn’t only make you a better UNO player, but also just a better person. Say, you’re having an argument with your partner or a heated debate with your boss—you’ll be surprised at how much faster and more comfortably you can reach a resolution when you’re actually listening and not trying to come up with a sassy comeback.
