ONO 99

Last updated
The 2022 version box ONOninenine.jpg
The 2022 version box

ONO 99 (previously published as O'NO 99 by International Games, Inc.) is a proprietary card game produced by Mattel and based on the public-domain card game 99 , but played with a unique deck of 54 cards (112 cards in the 2022 edition). The object of the game is to play as many number cards as possible while keeping the total value of discarded cards below 99. Similar to the game Uno, ONO 99 has special cards such as Reverse, Hold, and Double Play cards that can alter gameplay.

Contents

Gameplay

The game is played by three to eight players. Each player picks a card from the deck , and the player drawing the highest-numbered card becomes the dealer (Hold, Reverse and Double Play counts as 0), who then deals four cards to each player, and places the remainder of the deck face down in the center of the play area. The player to the dealer's left starts the hand by playing any numbered card face up beside the deck, forming a discard pile, and announces the number. That player must then immediately draw the top card from the deck. Each subsequent player does likewise, announcing a new total by adding the value of the card they played to the previous player's total. Play continues clockwise between players until one player is unable to play a card without causing the total value of the discard pile to reach or exceed 99; that player loses the hand and will start the next hand. [1]

In addition to number cards (2 to 10 in the original 1980 edition; 0 to 10 in the 2022 edition), five special types of cards are present in the deck, which may be used to attack opponents or benefit the player using them:

If a player lays down a card, but fails to draw one before the next player in sequence completes their own turn, they are not allowed to replace the missing card. A player so affected can potentially be at a great disadvantage, especially if they are holding any ONO 99 card. The player may correct the error by drawing a card before the next player in sequence completes a turn.

All players begin the game with an equal number of lives, left up to their discretion. Losing a hand costs the player one life; a player who has run out of lives is out of the game. The last remaining player is the winner.

Alternate scoring

A rule variation as suggested in the official rules is to use a point-scoring system in which the player who loses the hand receives 25 points plus the value of cards in their hand:

A point limit is determined before the start of the game (500 as suggested by the official rules). When a player's score reaches the limit, either the game ends and the player with the lowest score wins, or the player who reached the score limit is eliminated and the game continues until only one player remains.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pinochle</span> Card game

Pinochle, also called pinocle or penuchle, is a trick-taking ace–ten card game, typically for two to four players and played with a 48-card deck. It is derived from the card game bezique; players score points by trick-taking and also by forming combinations of characters into melds. It is thus considered part of a "trick-and-meld" category which also includes the game belote. Each hand is played in three phases: bidding, melds, and tricks. The standard game today is called "partnership auction pinochle".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">500 (card game)</span> Trick-taking card game

500 or Five Hundred is a trick-taking game developed in the United States from Euchre. Euchre was extended to a 10 card game with bidding and a Misère contract similar to Russian Preference, producing a cutthroat three-player game like Preference and a four-player game played in partnerships like Whist which is the most popular modern form, although with special packs it can be played by up to six players.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canasta</span> Card game

Canasta is a card game of the rummy family of games believed to be a variant of 500 rum. Although many variations exist for two, three, five or six players, it is most commonly played by four in two partnerships with two standard decks of cards. Players attempt to make melds of seven cards of the same rank and "go out" by playing all cards in their hands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uno (card game)</span> Card game produced by Mattel

Uno, stylized as UNO, is a proprietary American shedding-type card game originally developed in 1971 by Merle Robbins in Reading, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati, that housed International Games Inc., a gaming company acquired by Mattel on January 23, 1992.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golf (card game)</span> Type of card game

Golf is a card game where players try to earn the lowest number of points over the course of nine deals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rummy</span> Group of matching-card games

Rummy is a group of games related by the feature of matching cards of the same rank or sequence and same suit. The basic goal in any form of rummy is to build melds which can be either sets or runs and either be first to go out or to amass more points than the opposition.

Macau, also spelled Makaua or Macaua, is a shedding-type card game from Hungary, with similar rules to Crazy Eights or Uno and uses a standard 52 card deck. The object of the game is to be the first player to remove all cards from one's hand. Macau involves bluffing so that the players can save cards for later for a higher point value. Cheating is encouraged to add additional gameplay depth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skip-Bo</span> Card game

Skip-Bo is a commercial version of the card game Spite and Malice, a derivative of Russian Bank, which in turn originates from Double Klondike. In 1967, Minnie Hazel "Skip" Bowman (1915–2001) of Brownfield, Texas, began producing a boxed edition of the game under the name SKIP-BO. In 1980 the game was purchased by International Games, which was subsequently bought by Mattel in 1992. A mobile version of the game for iOS was released by Magmic in September, 2013. There is a new version called "SKIP-BO Mod" that comes in a white and blue case.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jass</span> Card game

Jass is a family of trick taking, ace–ten card games and, in its key forms, a distinctive branch of the marriage family. It is popular in its native Switzerland as well as the rest of the Alemannic German-speaking area of Europe, Italian South Tyrol and in a few places in Wisconsin, Ohio, California, Oregon and Washington USA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liverpool rummy</span> Card game

Liverpool rummy is a multi-player, multi-round card game similar to other variants of rummy that adds features like buying and going out. It is played the same as Contract rummy, except that if a player manages to cut the exact number of cards required to deal the hand and leave a face-up card, then the cutting player's score is reduced by 50 points.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phase 10</span> Card game

Phase-10

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conquian</span> Card game

Conquian, Coon Can or Colonel is a rummy-style card game. David Parlett describes it as an ancestor to all modern rummy games, and a kind of proto-gin rummy. Before the appearance of gin rummy, it was described as "an excellent game for two players, quite different from any other in its principles and requiring very close attention and a good memory to play it well".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Switch (card game)</span> Card game

Switch is a shedding-type card game for two or more players that is popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland and as alternative incarnations in other regions. The sole aim of Switch is to discard all of the cards in one's hand; the first player to play their final card, and ergo have no cards left, wins the game. Switch is very similar to the games Crazy Eights, UNO, Flaps, Mau Mau or Whot! belonging to the Shedding family of card games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Troccas</span> Tarot card game

Troccas is a member of the Tarot family of card games. It is a four player game played in the Romansh speaking part of the canton Grisons of Switzerland. It is not known exactly how this game entered Switzerland but it is generally thought to have arrived from Italy during the 17th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Continental Rummy</span> Rummy card game

Continental Rummy is a progressive partnership Rummy card game related to Rumino. It is considered the forerunner of the whole family of rummy games using two packs of cards as one. Its name derives from the fact that it is played throughout the continental Europe, the United States, Mexico, Canada, and also in South America. According to Albert Morehead, it was "at one time the most popular form of Rummy in women's afternoon games, until in 1950 it lost out to Canasta."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ninety-nine (addition card game)</span> Card game

Ninety-nine is a simple card game based on addition and reportedly popular among the Romani people. It uses one or more standard decks of Anglo-American playing cards in which certain ranks have special properties, and can be played by any number of players. During the game, the value of each card played is added to a running total which is not allowed to exceed 99. A player who cannot play without causing this total to surpass 99 loses that hand and must forfeit one token.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manille</span> French card game

Manille is a Catalan French trick-taking card game which uses a 32 card deck. It spread to the rest of France in the early 20th century, but was subsequently checked and reversed by the expansion of belote. It is still popular in France and the western part of Belgium.

Indian Cherokee Rummy is a card game in India with little variation from original rummy. It may be considered a cross between Rummy 500 and gin rummy. Indian Rummy is a variant of the rummy game popular in India that involves making valid sets out of 13 cards that are distributed among every player on the table. Each player is dealt 13 cards initially; if the number of players is 2, then a 52 cards deck is chosen for the game and if there are 6 players, two decks of 52 cards each is combined for the game. Each player has to draw and discard cards by turns till one player melds their cards with valid sets that meet the Rummy validation rules. It could be that Indian Rummy evolved from a version of Rummy in South Asia, Celebes Rummy, also called Rhuk.

Buraco is a Rummy-type card game in the Canasta family for four players in fixed partnerships in which the aim is to lay down combinations in groups of cards of equal rank and suit sequences, there being a bonus for combinations of seven cards or more. Buraco is a variation of Canasta which allows both standard melds as well as sequences. It originated from Uruguay and Argentina in the mid-1940s, with apparent characteristics of simplicity and implications that are often unforeseeable and absolutely involving. Its name derives from the Portuguese word "buraco" which means “hole”, applied to the minus score of any of the two partnerships. The game is also popular in the Arab world, specifically in the Persian Gulf; where it is known as 'Baraziliya' (Brazilian). Another popular variation of Buraco is Italian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glossary of card game terms</span>

The following is a glossary of terms used in card games. Besides the terms listed here, there are thousands of common and uncommon slang terms. Terms in this glossary should not be game-specific, but apply to a wide range of card games played with non-proprietary packs. It should not include terms solely related to casino or banking games. For glossaries that relate primarily to one game or family of similar games, see Game-specific glossaries.

References

  1. Harrison, Kerry (2008-10-22). "O'NO 99 Rules". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2022-04-26.