The Exploding Kittens Card Game is the purr-fect gift for all the card game fans out there! This hilarious and strategic game will have you and your friends laughing, strategizing, and maybe even exploding with excitement!
Imagine a game where you can avoid getting blown up by an exploding kitten, all while plotting to explode your opponents. Sounds crazy, right? Well, that’s exactly what this game is all about! With its simple rules and quick gameplay, it’s easy to learn and impossible to put down.
Whether you’re a seasoned card game enthusiast or just looking for a fun way to spend time with friends and family, Exploding Kittens is a must-have addition to your game collection. It combines elements of luck, strategy, and a whole lot of unpredictability, making each round a thrilling and unpredictable adventure.
Not only is this game incredibly entertaining, but it also comes in a compact and portable box, making it perfect for game nights, parties, or even taking on your travels. It’s suitable for players aged 7 and up, so it’s a fantastic gift for both kids and adults alike.
So, if you’re searching for a brilliant gift for card game fans, look no further than the Exploding Kittens Card Game. It’s a hilarious, strategic, and explosively fun game that will keep everyone entertained for hours on end. Get ready to unleash the feline frenzy and have a blast with this fantastic game!
Amazon Customer –
Yo lo compré a modo de expansión ya que tengo la versión para cinco jugadores. Realmente es un juego muuuuy divertido, a mí me encanta y además tengo las dos primeras expansiones lo que lo hace más interesante de lo que ya es.
Crazy Jamie –
Item meant to play a tune on opening, but unfortunately defective and only working for the first half a second. Not worth the effort to return, as still able to use
Mrs bee –
At the time of writing this there are mountains of reviews (rightly) praising Exploding Kittens for its accessibility, production values, presentation and general excellence. There aren’t really any reviews explaining what exactly a ‘Russian Roulette’ card game actually entails, so as endlessly charming as the game is (and it really is), I thought I’d explain how the game works and why it is an excellent game in its own right.
The mechanics are pretty simple. Each turn you will (generally) have a number of cards in your hand that allow you to do a number of different things (more on those in a second). You END your turn by drawing a card. If you draw an Exploding Kitten card, you are out of the game and the card is removed from the deck. Hence the ‘Russian Roulette’ element. In every game there will be one less Exploding Kitten card in the deck than there are players, so in the end one person will win when everyone else has drawn an Exploding Kitten card.
The game is spiced up by all of the other cards in the deck. It is worth mentioning to begin with that everyone starts with one Defuse card, and others can be drawn from the deck during the game. Defuse cards are the only cards that can save you from an Exploding Kitten. If you draw an Exploding Kitten and have a Defuse card, you can play it and place the Exploding Kitten card back in the deck wherever you want, in sight of the other players or not (in case it’s not obvious, that element adds a really devious strategical element to the game).
All of the other cards can be played prior to you drawing your card and ending your turn, and generally in some way reduce your chances of drawing a card. For example, the See The Future card allows you to look at the top three cards of the deck before you draw a card, the Skip card skips your turn entirely, and the Shuffle card does what it says on the turn and allows you to shuffle the deck before drawing a card. There are also cards with art on them that have no actions, and you can collect these and play them in sets to allow you to take cards from other players.
The action cards are perfectly balanced and designed to add strategical and (to some degree) bluff elements to what is essentially a game of luck. There is no getting away from the fact that luck plays a heavy part in this game, but actually the playing of the actions cards and subtle attempts at deceiving the other players make this game feel far more strategic than it actually is, which is a good thing. Ultimately every game will include some element of trying to mislead other players and trap them into drawing an Exploding Kitten card, and that is part of what gives the game its high replay value.
Games are quick, normally taking no more than 15 to 20 minutes, and much like other casual card games like UNO, there is normally a strong desire to ‘to just play one more time’ before finishing or moving on to something else. I was an initial Kickstarter backer for the game, and have played it as part of game nights as well as with various combinations with my family in more casual settings, and everyone has taken to the game well and wanted to play a few games in a sitting rather than one.
When I was younger I remember playing UNO and various traditional card based games with my family either on family holidays, after meals, or at family gatherings and such. For me Exploding Kittens is that sort of game for a new generation, a game that is most certainly casual and can be won by anyone due to the luck element, but that contains enough charm, strategy, and that all important ‘just one more game’ factor to make it a stable for any family or group. As such I would heartily recommend it; in my view this game is a genuine classic that deserves to be as highly owned as the likes of UNO.
On one final point as to whether this is suitable for children or not, given that the game inherently involves explosions and kittens there are some morbid elements that parents may think are unsuitable for very young children, but actually the game is presented in a very comedic way, and I would have thought that the game would be suitable for any children that are old enough to understand the rules. The box says it’s suitable for 7 and up, which feels about right to me. I do reiterate that this is a review of the standard deck though; the NSFW (Not Safe For Work) deck contains explicit cards with very mature themes, and is most certainly not suitable for children. If you take my recommendation and buy one of these to play in a family, make sure you buy the right one if you’re playing with children!
Nathan Cayley –
My family love this game it’s very simple yet an addictive game for the all the family to enjoy.
Michael Shellshear –
Bought for my son for Christmas, this has fast become our favourite game!! Easy to learn, fun for all ages, we played with people from 10 to 75 and we all loved it. Good concept, basically like Russian roulette but a lot of fun.
Alberto de Ophir –
Purchased for my nine year old. She loves it and I love playing it with her!
Lorraine S. –
We have some of the other exploding kitten games but this is by far our favourite. It takes a little time to learn what all the cards do but once you’ve done that it’s super fun. You will play this again and again and won’t say no when your kids beg to play “ just one last time”
Michael Shellshear –
We currently have family games night every week, I bought this game for this reason.
There are 3 of us that play together in a house share, we are all adults over 30 years of age.
The game is incredibly fun and only gets better with each expansion pack but I’ll focus on the main pack for now.
Exploding kittens is a great game for beginners in the board/card game genres however I do have a few minor issues with it.
While the game is incredibly fun, will definitely get people laughing at a party and is very to pick up and play, the rounds don’t last all that long which may be good for some people but we tend to like games that last longer.
Most of the main cards you will be using have pretty much the same effect on the game like stealing from someone else or making them pick up the next card and I could see this becoming repeative over time.
That said once you’ve got a little bored you can get the expansion packs and they definitely do add more fun to the game.
We will definitely be playing this game every few weeks and breaking it out at parties that’s for sure, the quality of the cards are really great and the pick up and play quickly is useful.
I would totally recommend this game for families wanting to get into games however more seasoned board games might want to go for something a bit more difficult.
Xenia Della Corte –
Exploding Kittens is a crazy card game full of some strange and funny cards. Exploding kittens, wormholes of a thousand possibilities, portable cheetah bottoms…
The game itself comes in a nice sturdy box and the cards are durable. My set was complete, and I gifted it to my siblings. Learning it (or relearning it, we played it a long time ago) was not extremely difficult, but it is a semi-confusing game that takes some brainpower to figure out, but once it is understood, it’s easy.
Gameplay is simple: Draw cards, take actions, and don’t get blown up while you wait for everyone else to blow up. Last one standing situation. Certain cards enable you to see the future, rearrange the deck, steal cards, skip turns, and more.
All in all, this is a quirky and fun game for the whole family.
Talia –
My friends and family all love this expansion pack. The tower of power is a fun little addition
Chris R –
I play with with colleagues at work during lunch breaks. Quick and easy for everyone to learn and super fun/hilarious. Brightens every working day!
Sarah –
My fiancee and I have a lot of card/board games but wanted more 2 player games for when we have no one else to play with. I ordered this as a fan of the Oatmeal’s artwork. When reading the rules, the game is initially a little confusing but only because we were overthinking it. Once you see the cards, it all becomes very obvious and you learn right away. You can quickly develop strategies and it’s a perfect way to kill a few minutes.
Mr Jm Hastings –
Exploding kittens is a family favourite, enjoyed every game night and holiday trip. As with every game, the more you play it, the more familiar you get to the strategies and play styles.
What better way to level the playing field than with new cards, actions and advantages?
Barking kittens delivers this in style – and by style I mean the glamourous new hat a lucky player gets to wear!
The kids loved the new ways they can screw dad over and avoid the exploding kittens!
The box is bigger than the base pack, because of the hat, but that means it is able to hold the original set plus additional expansion sets easily.
woof, meiow, boom!