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A personal tragedy for me today as the Uno app on my iPhone was turned off. They have been threatening this shut down for months now, but there were a few respites, but by this evening it was gone. I have played this game every single day for the best part of 10 months and I was fucking excellent at it, playing idiots who wouldn’t understand the tactics of Uno if they had spent five years at Uno University (or Unoversity as it is often called).
It was in many ways a fucking annoying version of the game. In their attempt to monetise it the creators had added all kinds of extra features which you generaly had to pay for (though you could win coins and play tokens as you went along or watch adverts for more - pro tip, just let the advert play and don’t watch it) which skewed the game to an extent that was sometimes infuriating and felt like cheating, but it just spurred me on to beat the idiots who were paying lots of money (or pretend coins) for advantages which were generally speaking not actually worth the outlay.
You also had a spirit animal which would give you an advantage too. And the more you paid out, the bigger the advantage. The best low level spirit animal was the one that revealed another player’s hand when you played a blue card. I can’t believe that everyone else didn’t realise that.
On the plus side the limitation to the number of play tokens you got meant that I would only play for half an hour a day - if it had been free I would almost certainly have given up my life to trying to prove I was better at playing Uno than a child in America, even when they were cheating and had paid 1000 coins so that everyone else would have to pick up two cards, rather than one, when they couldn’t go and had a spirit animal that made them invulnerable to +4 cards.
So much was wrong with the app, but still it’s been my companion and friend for so long. And I’ve built up a run of 420 wins “in a row” (which is nonsense, but you can watch ads to allow you to continue your run) and now it’s all gone into the ether. Like I was just totally wasting my time.
I hope someone else is bringing out an Uno app, where people can just play Uno without any of the other bullshit. I never really played Uno before to be honest, but it’s a good game, mainly composed of luck, but with enough strategy to give you the edge if you know what you’re doing.
First they took away my Yahtzee, then my Monopoly and now Uno has gone. Why can’t apps be more reliable? In the after life will someone tot up how many days and months and years I have wasted playing games on my phone? My phone is already judging me and telling me how much screen time I’ve had each week, but I suspect there is a special place in Hell for people like me. And an even more special place for the idiots who play as many games as me, but who don’t even understand the fucking tactics.
And I started the day with another stone clearing podcast - still ad free - which also includes a revolutionary new tactic which should see you win any game of chess.
Check it out here.
Just over a week to International Women’s Day - it seems to come round quicker every year - and I will be spending the day, as usual letting people know that there already is an International Men’s Day and also when it is (no spoilers). Last year we managed to raise an incredible £150,000 + gift aid for Refuge from people spurring me on with donations of £19.11 (or whatever people wanted to give). I doubt that we can do that well again, but it’d be lovely to add another £50,000 to the total.
If you didn’t give anything last time or if you want to donate again -
here’s the gofundme page. A couple of grand in the bank before we start will really help.
