Next Steps is a series of posts following a series of games that are popular beyond the board gaming world, and giving a suggestion for deeper dives into similar games. The suggestions here are intended to keep parts of the “essentials” of the game, while potentially being a step or two more complicated.
UNO has been a staple of many households since its introduction in 1971 (and earlier, with its inspiration Crazy Eights). If you're looking for modern games that scratch the same itch as UNO but with more modern sensibilities, you've come to the right place!
When selecting these next steps, I focused on games that share key characteristics with UNO. First and foremost, the rules must be simple enough for anyone to learn within a single round. While there are fantastic family-weight games that fit stylistically, games like Sushi Go were too complex for this list. Player count flexibility was another crucial factor. Since UNO works best with 3-6 players, I wanted games that could accommodate similar ranges. Lastly, I looked for light strategy games—not too complex, but not party or dexterity games.
Push #
Like UNO, PUSH features a striking visual design with bold numbers and vibrant colors that grab your attention. The game provides another familiar element with card-based gameplay, but introduces an exciting push-your-luck element.
On your turn, draw cards and add them to up to three different stacks. Each stack must contain unique cards and colors. If you can't place a card, you bust! If you’d rather play it safe, you can bank your cards instead of drawing more to lock in those points. The duel decision — banking vs drawing, as well as drawing vs stopping — gives a nice ebb and flow to the game, where some turns are fairly low stakes, but the tensions can ramp up quickly.
Mantis #
In Mantis, you only do one of two things on your turn: try to score or try to steal. If you try to score, you take the top card of the draw pile and see if it matches any of your existing colors. If it does, congratulations! You can move those cards into your score pile. If you try to steal, you take the top card of the draw pile and see if it matches another specific player's cards. If it does, you take all of their cards in that color. However, if it doesn't match, they get it. The first person to get 10 (or more) cards in their score pile wins!
There is one key detail that makes the game work: the backs of the cards show three different colors, one of which matches the front of the card. This gives you a little bit of information that adds strategy to the game. The stealing part of the game gives a little bit of take-that, similar to the +2 cards in UNO. However, since they aren't dependent on seating order, you can attack the person who stole your stack of pink cards no matter where they are sitting!
Penguin Party #
Penguin Party is a shedding game like UNO, which means that your goal is to get rid of all the cards in your hand. Each player gets an equal amount of cards, and on their turn they are building a shared pyramid. After the first tier, each new penguin must match one of the two penguins supporting it. If you can’t play any cards, take one point for each card in your hand, and you’re out until the next round starts. Play as many rounds as there are players, and whoever has the fewest points wins!
Penguin Party somehow manages to have an even simpler ruleset than UNO, while having more interesting decisions. At first, it seems purely luck-based. After a few plays, though, you can start to see the consequences of each play. You might ignore the fact that there is only one green in the first row and hope it doesn’t get blocked in order to double up the thick stack of purples in your hand. Maybe you intentionally block pink while you have one left in your hand, assuming that the other players have more in their hands.
Each of these games have the same simplicity and flexibility of UNO, but have their own unique gameplay as well.
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