Uno Blokus Shuffle is the Uno version of Blokus, a popular game that tests your spatial reasoning while incorporating Tetris-shaped- pieces that have to be arranged on a grid-surfaced board. Blokus has won several awards, including by Mensa, and thus is a good game that can give the mind a challenge – while the addition of Uno cards utterly changes the way Blokus is played. Read on below to learn the Uno Blokus Shuffle rules!
Number of Players
Uno Blokus Shuffle is meant for 4 players, but you can play it with 3 or 2 players although it may not be so much fun, because players will need to share colors. The game consists of 84 pieces in 4 colors (21 pieces of red/yellow/blue/green) and 56 Uno cards (14 cards of red/yellow/blue/green).
Objective
The objective of the game is to cover as many squares as possible on the game board with your pieces until you are left with as few pieces as possible. This game is perhaps the only Uno version that does not require you to yell out “Uno!” at all, since the game ends when the board is full and no longer has space to place any more pieces; the Uno cards are just to shake up the original Blokus rules!
Uno Blokus Shuffle Cards
Every card in Uno Blokus Shuffle is an Action card of some sort. Below are the different cards in the game. Some of the cards seem typical of other Uno versions, but the rest are totally new cards.
Skip – Play this card and the next player loses their turn.
Reverse – Play this card and the direction of play changes (clockwise to anti-clockwise, and vice versa).
Draw 2 – When you play this card, draw 2 cards. Play one of them only, and put the other card at the bottom of the Draw pile.
Wild – This is a powerful card. You can declare any color you want for your piece, and play it even next to your opponents’ pieces, touching a corner of their piece (following regular Blokus rules).Once you play it, the piece goes back to its color. Therefore, the Wild card enables you to start new space acquisitions in other parts of the board.
Double Play – This card allows you to take another turn in playing a piece.
Edge to Edge – This is a powerful card in that it allows you to override the Blokus default rule of only allowing touching of the pieces at the corners. This card allows you to play your piece to touch your other pieces along the sides during your turn.
Warp – A handy card that allows you to move an opponent’s piece to another spot on the board. But remember that it has to obey the Blokus rule of touching other pieces of your opponent’s at the corners (and not the sides).
Recycle – This card allows you to remove one of your pieces from the board and return it back to your pile of unplayed pieces. You can choose to play it at a different spot for this turn, or save it for a later turn.
Starting the Game
To begin the game, each player has to choose a color. Each player takes all the pieces and cards of that color. Now shuffle the cards and put them face down to form their own Draw pile. So each player will have their own Draw pile.
Now choose someone to start first, and then gameplay proceeds in a clockwise direction. The following is the gameplay for 4, 3, and 2 players (although Uno Blokus Shuffle is best played with 4 players).
The basics for Uno Blokus Shuffle are the same as for regular Blokus – each player starts by placing a piece of their choice onto the board covering a corner square. Afterwards, players continue placing pieces onto the board, but their pieces can only touch at the corners. If pieces are of different colors, then this rule does not apply and pieces can touch along the sides.
Winning the Game
How do you win Uno Blokus Shuffle? The game ends when nobody can play any more pieces to the board due to running out of available space. Everyone counts the number of squares in their remaining unplayed pieces. The player with the least squares is the winner.
Gameplay for 4 players
Uno Blokus Shuffle is best played with 4 players. According to their turns in clockwise direction, each player places their first piece at their respective corner, and draws 2 cards from their personal Draw pile to form their hand. They must not show these cards to anyone else. This completes the first initial turn cycle.
Now back to the first player, choose one of those 2 cards and place it face up to form your own personal Discard pile. Having put down that card, take whatever action the card says. Depending on what the card says, place a 2nd piece on the board that touches an existing one at a corner. After that, draw a new card and this completes your turn. And then it’s time for the next player to take their turn.
Some important points to note:
- You must always play a card if you have one and carry out its actions
- If you are unable to carry out the card’s actions, just discard the card to the Discard pile.
- If you don’t have any more cards, then ignore it; do NOT reshuffle your Discard pile to reconstitute a Draw pile and draw again from it.
- If you are unable to place a piece to the board, then you must do nothing and miss your turn.
To recap, the gameplay goes as follows:
- Play a card.
- Play a piece to the board.
- Draw a card.
- End turn.
Gameplay for 3 Players
The gameplay for 3 players is different and involves sharing the colors. The order of the turns now goes by color. The turn order is:
- Blue
- Yellow
- Red
- Green
Each player chooses one color initially while the remaining color is shared and all the players take turns to play it alternately when its turn comes up. Meanwhile, the Draw pile for the shared color is kept facedown.
The gameplay is the same as for 4 players. At the end of the game, when there is no more room on the board to play pieces, the winner is the person with the least amount of unplayed pieces. Meanwhile, the shared color is not counted at all.
Gameplay for 2 Players
In a 2-player game, both the players must control 2 colors each. One player plays blue and red, and the other controls green and yellow. Both players take all the cards of both their respective colors and combine them by shuffling to form a single deck. However, the pieces are not combined.
The order of the turns goes like this:
- Blue
- Yellow
- Red
- Green
Remember, the cards you play in a 2-player game don’t have to match the color of the pieces you are currently playing. For any Wild cards, you are free to choose any color you like.
At the end of the game, the scoring goes by the “worst” color for both the players. If a player has 5 squares of Green and 10 of Yellow, then their score is 10.
Alternative Scoring
This advanced scoring method is suggested by Mattel. It involves gaining points based on what pieces are remaining with each player. Under this advanced scoring system, the one with the highest score is the winner. So any negative scores work against you. What you need are positive scores.
- All remaining squares in the unplayed pieces: -1 point per square.
- If all pieces have been placed onto the board: +15 points
- If the last piece placed on the board was the smallest piece (1 square): +5 points
An example of this scoring system:
- Blue player has remaining 2 three square pieces and 1 four square piece, so their score is -10 points.
- Yellow player has played the smallest piece last and has 4 three square pieces, so their score is -7 points.
- Red player has 3 three square pieces and 4 four square pieces remaining, so their score is -25 points
- Green player has 1 five square piece and 4 three square pieces remaining, so their score is -17 points.
The winner of this game is the yellow player.