My Binusian Blog

On the second week, I researched into the basic game settings which needs to be set before going further into the next step, which is Definitions and Notations

Game Settings

UNO can be played between 2-10 players at a time. Firstly, each player is dealt an equal number of cards. A normal card has two attributes; color and number. There are also special cards called ‘action cards’. At each turn, a player can only play a card which matches the current card’s color or number beforehand. If not a single card can be played, the player has to draw a card from the draw pile. The player then has to play the card if it is possible.

The goal of the game is to play all the cards in one’s hand before the remaining players. Thus, it is a Multiplayer game, an imperfect-information, and an uncooperative combinatoric game.

Imperfect information

In a game of imperfect information, players are simply unaware of the actions chosen by other players. However they know who the other players are, what their possible strategies/actions are, and the preferences/payoffs of these other players.

Action cards

Action cards make UNO more complex and fun because it allows psychological strategies to be implemented. However, we are not sure if our final project will incorporate these cards because it could cause high mathematical complexity.

Assumptions

• Action cards are not taken into account
• All the cards dealt to and in the hand of any player are open during the game (i.e., perfect-information);
• no player is allowed to skip their turn intentionally
• the first player can start the game by playing any card he/she likes at hand, with no constraint on matching color or number.