Eric streams (and tries to figure out the rules to) the new UNO Fenyx's Quest DLC

UNO is one of those funny Ubisoft franchises that must quietly sell zillions of copies. For all of the franchise's kid-friendly sparkling colors and fancy licensed Ubi-themed decks, the game can be ridiculously difficult, disassembling players with the brutal efficiency of an UNO cardsharp. This fun-yet-devastating dynamic makes UNO a good challenge for kids, while forcing adults to both keep on their toes and try not to curse.

I never engaged with video game UNO before I snagged a copy on Stadia with my Ubisoft+ account, but it has quickly become one of my household's favorite "let's-kill-a-half-hour" go-to games. My daughter, in particular, has latched onto UNO as one of her favorite video game pastimes, and as such, I've been happily dragged right along with her. 

Since UNO is such a big deal at our place, we were both pretty excited by the arrival of Ubisoft's new cross-over deck, the new UNO Fenyx's Quest DLC. We decided to stream our session this morning as we jumped into Fenyx's Quest feet first and tried to get a handle on the rules - which might have been a mistake, as Fenyx's Quest adds a ton of little wrinkles to the core UNO gameplay.

It took several rounds (and a couple of hands spent retreating to other, less-complex decks) before we really got a grip on what was going on in Fenyx's Quest. So far, here are the additional rules that we were able to figure out:

• The pattern around the edges of the board slowly lights up as players lay down cards. Every time it fills the entire circle, the evil God Typhon puts a cursed card into everyone's hand (you can tell a cursed card by the fuzzy purple glow around it). Each cursed card in your hand will force you to draw an additional card every turn, so either unload it or hand it off to an opponent as quickly as possible.
• Each player is randomly assigned a "God Power" at the beginning of a hand. You must play five cards before your God Power is unlocked. Each of these abilities is incredibly powerful, and in opponent's hand, can end the round before you even know what happened.
• God Powers are displayed on screen with a little pop-up tooltip, which can be summoned or dismissed with the R2 button. You can cycle through the God Powers to figure out who can do what, but the best course is just to play until you have them memorized. Also - the tooltip seems to get in the way of regular button presses and navigation, so its best to consult it and then just get rid of it until you need it again.
• There are two new cards - Fenyx Power and Typhon's Trick. Fenyx Power allows you to discard any two cards in your hand, which is a great way to end the hand without having to call UNO. Typhon's Trick adds four new cards to any opponents hand, but then they get to discard two. While not as devastating as a Draw Four, it is still an effective way to keep an opponent from going out - and as far as I can tell, Typhon's Trick cannot be stacked like a Draw Two can.

My daughter and I had a good time streaming UNO Fexyx's Quest this morning, and you can clearly see us getting more comfortable with its complex new rule set to the point where we actually win a couple of rounds. We'll probably be dipping in a few more times this weekend.

Gaming Nexus' streaming partner Games N Moorer is also going to be taking a swing at this new UNO DLC sometime in the next couple of days, so keep an eye on his channels for that, as it ought to be pretty funny to watch him struggle with it. Games N Moorer streams on Facebook at http://facebook.com/gamesnmoorer/ and on Twitch at https://twitch.tv/gamesnmoorer .

UNO Fenyx's Quest if available on just about every platform out there. The DLC is $4.99 on its own, or you can grab it along with the UNO Ultimate Edition for $19.99.