This review was originally written on August 5th, 2015.
Back in January 2015, game designer Elan Lee posted a video asking for money to fund a card game revolving around kittens exploding. While this may sound gruesome, Matthew Inman (art for The Oatmeal) brought about a cute and charming art style to this otherwise horrific concept. With a brief yet silly Kickstarter video showing the basics of gameplay with tacocats, Abracrab Lincoln, and thousand-year back hair, the Kickstarter campaign managed to fund more than $8 million with over 200,000 backers. Half a year later, the game has finally arrived on backers’ doorsteps. The most important question now remains—was it worth the wait? Simply put, yes.
Exploding Kittens is best described as a strategic Russian Roulette. Like a real game of Russian Roulette (please don’t play a real version, though!), luck is the dominant factor in a person’s survival. In Exploding Kittens, however, 2-5 players draw cards which can be played to ensure their survival or to hamper other players’ chances of living. Player turns are split into two parts—actions and drawing. The action phase allows players to perform as many actions as desired as long as the cards permit it. The draw phase is where the game becomes truly intense, as what lies on the top of the deck could be a beneficial card or an Exploding Kitten—which, as the name suggests, explodes and causes the player who draws the card to lose. Unless, of course, the player has a green Defuse card which allows the player to expend it and may then place the Exploding Kitten back into the deck at the position of their choosing. This may be placed directly on top for the next player to draw, somewhere in the middle, or counted down a few cards to get your friend who sits two spaces away from you and keeps winning. Yet, as expected, the other plethora of cards can change the game quickly and sometimes turn a scheme against another player into one that hurts the schemer.
Exploding Kittens has a total of nine card types. The first, as explained earlier, is the Exploding Kitten which causes the player to lose when drawn. There is always one less Exploding Kitten card in the deck than the number of players so that only one player remains at the end. The second type of card is the Defuse card which, also explained earlier, allows the player to place a drawn Exploding Kitten card back into the deck. Each player starts with one Defuse card in his or her hand to ensure that everyone has a chance to survive the first few rounds should there be an unlucky draw. With a total of six Defuse cards in the deck, this means that there will be a few extra Defuse cards which can be drawn while playing the game. While the Exploding Kitten and Defuse cards make up the core of the game, the other seven cards are what differentiate Exploding Kittens from other similar games.
Attack cards exist which force the next player to perform two turns in a row with you skipping your draw phase. This is useful when knowing the Exploding Kitten is on the top of the deck and you wish to avoid the impeding destruction. Somewhat similar to Attack cards, Skip cards skip the current player’s turn but do not force the next player to perform two turns in a row. These are most useful when planning an exact number of turns that must occur in a row but may also ensure survival. Favor cards force a player of your choice to give you a card from their hand. Since the player that you choose may select any card they wish, I often found this card type best used when the opposing player has a low number of cards in their hand. Shuffle cards also exist so that the deck may be reordered, often used when the player knows that the top card is an Exploding Kitten. One of the more interesting card types, however, is See the Future, which permits the player to privately view the top three cards of the deck. This grants the user inside knowledge of what will be drawn that turn in addition to the next two players’ draws, often allowing the player to react with an Attack, Skip, or even Shuffle card if the top card is an Exploding Kitten. While all of these strategies work, the last major card type, the Nope card, allows other players to stop any action (other than Exploding Kitten and Defuse cards) from occurring. For example, if a player uses See the Future and notices the top card is an Exploding Kitten, he or she may decide it is best to use a Skip or Attack so the next player draws it instead. However, the next player may counteract with a Nope to save himself from impending doom.
With the large number of interesting and practical cards, the last type of card is sadly underwhelming. Simply known as Cat cards, these cards have no special abilities and simply stay in the player’s hand. These tend to be the cards given out when asked for a Favor, as they rarely can be used. As these cards take up 20 of the 56 total cards in the deck, it is disappointing we couldn’t have received one additional card type in exchange for one of the five sets of four Cat cards. The main purpose of these cards is to be used in Special Combos, which may be activated when players have two of a kind, three of a kind, or five different card types. Players may use two of a kind to pick a card at random from another player’s hand. While useful on occasion, it is common to use two Cat cards and receive another Cat card in exchange. Three of a kind is slightly different, as the player may name a type of card from another player’s hand and receive it automatically as long as they are holding one. Exchanging five different cards is probably the most interesting since it allows the player to select one card from the discard pile to place in his or her hand. Although exchanging five different cards can be a useful tactic, I never saw it once used for any card other than a Defuse card, rendering it a move exclusively for recovering. However, players must carefully use these Special Combos, since they can still be stopped with a Nope!
With multiple different tactics, Exploding Kittens fortunately shines in its gameplay. Turns are fast-paced, requiring players to constantly watch the deck and be prepared to take action where their turn comes around next. Actions take no longer than a few seconds to resolve, allowing players to perform multiple actions in one turn without bogging down the game’s pace. Interestingly, I found that most rounds all players survive longer than half of the game, keeping players actively engaged for a lengthy amount of time. Although still heavily reliant on luck (we’ve all started with a hand filled with useless tacocats and beard cats), a single card or well-placed Exploding Kitten after a Defuse can significantly change the direction of the game. I have had rounds where I have held two Attack cards, two Skip cards, a Nope card, and a Defuse card, only to be Nope’d back by three separate players at once, causing me to lose almost all of my cards in one turn when I had had a significant lead. Other rounds where I started with multiple different Cat cards ended up being where I performed better due to well-timed two of a kind exchanges and lucky late-game draws. This proves that Exploding Kittens is a game revolved around luck, but its ability to keep players alive for a lengthy period of time thanks to a well-balanced deck keeps everyone engaged for as long as possible.
Before concluding, I would like to briefly touch on the art style of Exploding Kittens. For fans of The Oatmeal, players are sure to instantly fall in love with the familiar quirky yet cute art style. Others, however, may view it differently. I personally adore the comedic style these cards were drawn in (tacocat yelling “I am a palindrome!” and the Nope card where you feed your opponent a Nope sandwich with extra Nopesauce are some of my favorites), but some may find the cards and art style repulsive and immature. The NSFW deck essentially takes the same sense of humor and makes it inappropriate, but I only found a few of the cards to be notably vulgar. While I probably would avoid playing the NSFW deck with children, older teens will likely find the sense of humor rather amusing.
All in all, Exploding Kittens manages to deliver a fun and relatively well-balanced experience to all players. The fast-paced nature of the game helps new players to learn the game quickly and keeps experienced players asking for one more round. The light strategic elements are enjoyable enough where the player always feels like he or she is making an impact on the outcome of the game. With as many interesting cards as there are in the deck, it is only disappointing to see so many redundant cards when a few could have been replaced with another type of card. Fortunately, Exploding Kittens appears to be constructed to support expansion packs, so we may see new types of cards in the future. Nevertheless, the cute and comedic art style is sure to bring in many players, but may also shy away a number as well. For anyone who can handle a bit of luck in a card game and enjoy a silly art style, Exploding Kittens is sure to become an addictive favorite.
Score: 8.5/10
I would like to add as a final note that most of the playtesting and enjoyment came from playing with five people. Having tried a few two player rounds, I did not find the game nearly as stimulating. I highly suggest having a larger number of players when playing the game, as it increases tension and competitiveness.