UFO: The Card Game is an interesting little Uno clone that is played against members of an alien race. It is a trademark of Ed T. Toton III, and adds some interesting twists to a family favorite card game.
The game plays very similar to Uno. The user must play against at least one opponent. There are four different colored cards in the game: red, blue, yellow and green. There are numbers 0-9, and some cards that have words on them that feature instructions for the players to follow. The players are each dealt seven cards, and the remaining cards are placed in a pile face down in between the players. A “discard” pile is started by drawing a card from the deck and placing it face up for everyone to see. The player to the left of the dealer must then play on this card, or follow its instructions if it is a word card. To play on the card, the user must match the card in the discard pile in some way. For example, if the card on top of the discard pile is a red 4, the next player can lay a 4 of any color, or a red card of any numerical value. He can also play a word card that is red, or a wild, which counts as whatever the player chooses.
Word cards found in UFO are as follows: Skip, Reverse, Draw 2, and Wild. The player has to follow the instructions when a card is laid. For example, if a red Skip is played on the above mentioned red four, the player’s turn is skipped. If “Reverse” is played, the order of play switches from clockwise to counter clockwise, and vice versa. Draw cards force the user to pick more cards from the pile. If the user cannot play on the card featured on the discard pile, he draws one card, plays if he can, or loses his turn. The object of the game is to be the first person to get rid of all of his cards.
When one gamer finally holds no cards, the scores of the cards his opponents are holding are added up and given to the individual who “went out” first. The first player to reach a score of five hundred is the winner. There is a different scoring value for the cards, with numerical cards being worth their face values, word cards being worth twenty and wild cards being worth fifty.
The spin on the game comes from the aliens. They are not like other computer opponents that the user may play against. While the user is screaming at the computer, the aliens are yelling back. Each different alien has a series of phrases he will issue in response to situations on the gaming table. They may taunt the user when they are down to only one card, or laugh if he is the victim of a draw. This is essentially what makes UFO different from the other few UNO clones out there. I love this addictive and entertaining game! It’s worth downloading.
Written by:
~Shannon
