Matthew BaileyAfter a very in-depth game with Leviathan Wilds, we’re jumping to something much simpler, and that’s Ono 99. It falls under the Uno family of games, but it’s nothing like Uno. It’s actually a really cool little game that’s especially good for helping kids with quick mental arithmetic.
The concept is super simple. You shuffle all the cards, place the deck face down, draw one card to start, and each player has four cards in their hand at all times. What you’re trying to do is stay in the game as long as possible by playing cards that usually increase the running total. So, if the current value is 5 and you play a 10, the new value becomes 15, and so on. The catch is that you can’t let the total hit 99. If you can’t play a card without taking the total to 99 or higher, you’re eliminated. Play continues until there’s one player left.
Normally, I’m not a huge fan of player elimination games, but this one is so quick that it’s not really an issue. Once one player is out, the others usually follow within a minute or so.
At the beginning of each round, you’re mostly building up the total slowly, getting rid of high cards and putting yourself in the best position possible. But once you get into the 80s and 90s, it gets tense, and you’re trying to cling on. That’s where special cards like “play two cards,” “reverse,” and the all-important “minus 10” become really useful.
There’s also a neat mechanic with the 99 cards. These can’t be played and just clog up your hand, but if you somehow end up with four of them, you can discard the whole lot and draw four new cards. That said, if you’ve got four 99 cards, you’re probably in trouble. We’ve played this quite a few times, and I think I’ve only ever seen someone use that discard rule once.
This is a simple, really quick game that’s perfect for playing at a restaurant, round the dinner table, in a pub, or with grandparents. It’s genuinely helpful for kids practising their number skills. We found it great with Toby to help build speed and confidence with addition and subtraction, especially when you’re dealing with numbers in the high double figures.
Again, it lasts about five minutes, so it doesn’t outstay its welcome. Even though it has the Uno branding, it plays nothing like Uno, but it sits in that same quick, travel-friendly category.
One thing to watch out for – as with most Uno-branded games, there are a lot of fakes online. Be especially careful when buying from eBay, Amazon third-party sellers, Temu, or AliExpress. If you want a proper copy, buy from a legitimate source. Expect to pay around £10.
We really enjoyed this. I liked it way more than I expected to when I first picked it up, and I’d definitely recommend adding it to your quick travel card game collection.
