UNO All Wild!

Overview

UNO All Wild! strips out the thing UNO is built on. Every card is wild. There are no colours to match and no numbers to match, so on your turn you simply play a card. What remains is the action cards, which is the entire game.

Two to ten players, 112 cards.

Written against Mattel's instruction sheet, item HHL33 (PDF).

1. The deck

The sheet gives a total and no breakdown:

Contents 112 Cards

It names eight card types: Wild, Wild Skip, Wild Skip Two, Wild Reverse, Wild Draw Two, Wild Draw Four, Wild Targeted Draw Two and Wild Forced Swap. How many of each is not stated, so treat any card-count list you find elsewhere as unverified.

2. Setup

1. Choose a dealer and shuffle.
2. Deal seven cards each.
3. The rest form the draw pile, face down.
4. Turn the top card over to start the discard pile. If it is a Wild Action Card, ignore the action.
5. Left of the dealer starts, clockwise.

3. A turn

On your turn, you try to get rid of your cards by playing ONE CARD onto the Discard Pile. That's it.

There is no matching requirement, because there is nothing to match. Play a card; if it is an action card, do what it says.

4. The cards

Card	Effect
Wild	Nothing. It is just a card you get to shed
Wild Skip	Next player loses their turn
Wild Skip Two	Next two players lose their turns
Wild Reverse	Direction of play reverses
Wild Draw Two	Next player draws 2 and loses their turn
Wild Draw Four	Next player draws 4 and loses their turn
Wild Targeted Draw Two	A player of your choice draws 2 — and does not lose their turn
Wild Forced Swap	You must choose another player and exchange hands

Two of those repay attention.

Wild Targeted Draw Two is the only card in any UNO deck that lets you punish someone who is not next in turn order, and the sheet is explicit that it costs them nothing but the cards — they keep their turn.

Wild Forced Swap is compulsory. You cannot hold it and decline. The sheet adds a reminder that matters: if either player ends up on one card after the swap, they must shout "UNO!".

On the plain Wild card the sheet is unusually candid:

Okay, technically this isn't an "action" card, but you're going to be playing a lot of these so try to keep things interesting. You could even call out a color if you want to. It won't change anything but so what.

Calling a colour is explicitly cosmetic.

5. Drawing on purpose

There is one printed piece of strategy, and it is easy to miss:

Let's say that the next player in order is about to go out and you don't have any way to stop them. You can take a chance and choose to draw a card instead of play any of the cards in your hand. You might just get lucky! If you do, you must either play the card you just drew or pass your turn without playing a card.

So you may always draw instead of playing — but having drawn, your only options are that one card or nothing.

6. Calling UNO

Down to one card, shout it. If someone calls it before you and before the next player takes their turn, you draw two.

7. Winning and the optional score

Play your last card and you win. Scoring is offered as an optional method:

Cards left in opponents' hands	Points
Wild	20
Any Wild Action Card	50

First to 500 points wins. The sheet's own gloss on the second row — "literally anything else" — is a fair summary of a deck with no numbers in it.

8. What the sheet does not say

• No card counts, so the deck's composition is not verifiable from the sheet.
• Nothing about stacking. No Draw Two onto Draw Two, in either direction.
• No two-player rules. With two players, Wild Skip and Wild Reverse would both return the turn to you, but the sheet does not address it.
• Nothing about the draw pile running out. Presumably reshuffle the discard pile, as in every other UNO, but it is not printed.
• Nothing about Wild Forced Swap when only two players remain, which makes it a straight hand exchange.

Commonly argued

• Calling a colour does nothing. The sheet says so outright.
• Targeted Draw Two does not skip anyone. The victim keeps their turn.
• Forced Swap is compulsory, and you pick the partner.
• You may draw instead of playing, but then it is that card or nothing.
• There is no matching, so no card is ever unplayable.

Where this comes from

Mattel's instruction sheet for UNO All Wild!, item HHL33, four languages, hosted by Mattel. One printing of one SKU, unversioned, and noticeably thin — the missing card counts are a real gap.

Where this entry and the sheet disagree, the sheet wins. Tell us.