Color Clash: UNO-style card game online with friends

Color Clash is a fast colour-matching card game, like UNO and the Crazy Eights family it comes from. Play it free online with friends: make a room, send the link on WhatsApp, and everyone joins from their own phone with no download and no sign-up. Or sit at the bottom of the table against one to five computer players. The race is simple: be the first to get rid of every card in your hand. A round takes a few minutes, which makes it a good game for a short break.

How to play

Everyone starts with seven cards and one card is turned face up to start the pile. On your turn, play one card that matches the top card by colour, by number or by symbol. A Wild can go on anything, and you choose the colour that play continues in. If you have nothing that fits, draw a card from the deck. If the new card fits, you may play it straight away; otherwise your turn passes. Play moves round the table in the direction the ring shows.

On a phone, tap a card to lift it and tap it again (or flick it upwards) to play it. With a mouse, just click it. Cards you can play glow; the others are dimmed.

The cards

• Number cards 0 to 9 in red, yellow, green and blue.
• Skip: the next player misses a turn.
• Reverse: play turns round. With two players it works like a Skip.
• Draw Two (+2): the next player draws two cards and misses a turn.
• Wild: play it on anything and name the colour.
• Wild Draw Four (+4): name the colour, and the next player draws four and misses a turn.

Every colour also has its own mark in the card corners (a triangle, a circle, a square and a star), so the cards are easy to tell apart even if some colours look alike to you.

Last card!

As soon as a play leaves you holding one card, a Last card! button appears with a ring that counts down three seconds. Tap it in time and you are safe; nobody can catch you while the ring runs. Let it run out and you can be caught: if another player taps Catch before you call or before the next move, you draw two cards. The computer players forget sometimes too: when one of them does, a Catch button appears over their seat. Be quick! If your last card goes out first, you simply win.

House rules

Choose your rules on the setup screen. Stacking (on by default) lets you answer a +2 with another +2, or a +2 or +4 with a +4, passing a growing pile of cards on to the next player. With the +4 challenge rule, a Wild Draw Four may be played as a bluff while you still hold the colour in play; the next player can challenge it. If it was a bluff, the player who played it draws four; if not, the challenger draws six. You can also turn on draw until you can play, 7-0 (a 7 swaps hands with a player you pick, a 0 passes every hand round), jump-in (play an identical card out of turn) and a 20-second turn timer.

Play with friends online

Tap With friends on the setup screen to make a room for two to six players, then share the invite link. Friends open it and take a seat, no app or account needed, and any empty seat is played by a bot. The host picks the house rules for everyone, and a rematch is one tap away.

Scoring

The player who goes out scores the cards left in everyone else’s hands: number cards at face value, Skip, Reverse and Draw Two at 20 points, and wilds at 50. Play a single round, or keep going until someone reaches 500.

Tips

• Save your wilds. They are your way out when nothing else fits.
• Change the colour to the one you hold most of, and watch which colour other players had to draw on.
• When someone is down to one or two cards, hit them with a Skip or a draw card, and get rid of your high-scoring cards.
• Keep a +2 back when stacking is on: it is your shield when a chain comes your way.

Is this UNO?

No. Color Clash plays like the card games you know, with skips, reverses, draw cards and wilds, but its cards, art and rules screen are its own. UNO is a trademark of Mattel; Color Clash is an original game and not affiliated.

Watch AI play this game, move by move, on Tested Locally.