Designers: Elan Lee, Shane Small

Publisher: The Oatmeal

Genre: Card Game

Number of Players: 2-5 Players 

Release Date: July 2015 

Difficulty: Easy 

SCORE: 5.5 / 10

What do you think when you first hear the name Exploding Kittens? The usual right? Small adorable kittens being blown up with guts and viscera smothering the walls. Okay that may be a bit too graphic, and this game isn’t like that at all, even the NSFW version. Welcome to Exploding Kittens, a Russian roulette style card game where you try to avoid the exploding kitten as much as possible. You may have multiple chances to escape and defuse the bomb, but you will be lucky to survive. It’s about time kittens joined the world of Die Hard.

As I mentioned above, in Exploding Kittens players take turns drawing cards and pray to their higher power (or lack there of) to avoid the “Exploding Kitten” card. Each player is dealt a hand of 3-5 cards consisting of a wide variety of different cards with different abilities, but also one defuse card. This defuse card can be used to save your ass on only one occasion to pass the exploding kitten down further into the deck, but not if one of your dastardly opponents steals your defuse card first! It happens more often than you think. Players begin by playing one card from their hand, following the abilities of said card, then draw a card at the end of the round.

Now there are a number of different cards you can play each turn:

• Exploding Kitten: You don’t want to grab these bastards. If you grab one and don’t have a defuse, you are out! You have been shot with the bullet in the chamber.
• Defuse: You can successfully dodge the Exploding Kitten cards. Congrats! You lived to survive for a few more turns.
• Skip: At the end of your turn, you don’t have to draw a card.
• Attack: An opponent must take two consecutive turns before the next player.
• See the Future: The player is able to take a peek at the top three cards of the deck.
• Shuffle: Does exactly what it says. Shuffle that damn deck!
• Favor: Excuse me, can I ask you for a favor? A player must give you a card from their hand.
• Nope!: By far my personal favorite, this allows you to cancel any action.
• Collectible cards: These cards actually don’t have any specific instructions. If you are able to collect the right amount of these cards, you can take a random card for an opponent’s hand.

Now, what exactly makes this version NSFW (or not safe for work for you simpletons)? The artwork of course! I was tempted to grab the SFW version, but the more naughty and raunchy a game is, typically the more fun I will have. The artwork is actually done really well in both versions for the style, as it is all illustrated by the Oatmeal and his “unique” style (if you can call it that). Besides that though, having the NSFW vs the SFW edition really changes the atmosphere of the game and your audience. If you would like to check out the differences below, I’ll give you this side by side comparison.

NSFW

SFW

While many people see Exploding Kittens and marvel at its simplicity, there are a few who can find a strategy that will lead you straight to the gold. You are pretty much left with only two methods of attack, either just try to dodge your opponent’s wrath and prepare for that Exploding Kitten, or go on the offensive! Exploding Kittens is much more exciting when the players start going after each other, as there is plenty of room for sabotage. Due to the simplicity of Exploding Kittens, sabotage is desperately needed to keep the game enticing.

Here is something that blew me away. Like many independent games nowadays, Exploding Kittens found the wind beneath its wings over on Kickstarter. Its campaign did so well in fact that Exploding Kittens is now the third most funded project on the site, raising over $8.8 million.  While my initial thought was, “Why the hell would someone raise $8.8 million for this”, but then I remembered where we are at. Two of the Internet’s favorite things, cats and explosions. Of course it was going to make it.

As for replay-ability, Exploding Kittens is best served as the occasional filler in between big box games, just like Three Cheers for Master or Coup. Since I purchased Exploding Kittens on Black Friday last year, we have played it a total of five or six times. If you had an ever-changing group of tabletop players joining each week, then it would find its way out of my storage box a little more often. While I am not saying the game isn’t fun, it just grows stale rather quickly when you play with the same players.

For the most part, Exploding Kittens is a fun party game to play once in a while…if you have the NSFW edition. Exploding Kittens, while simple in its design and execution, offers gameplay filled to the brim with plenty of sabotage if you are willing to take advantage. An entertaining ball of ridiculousness to share with your friends or a boring deck of cards, whatever it becomes is up to you.  Final decision? If you find Exploding Kittens on sale randomly at the store, don’t feel bad about picking it up.

Interested in more tabletop games like Exploding Kittens? Be sure to watch out for the next issue and follow my Bacon Bits for a sneak peak at what the next issue might hold. Be sure to also check out everything else Nerd Bacon has to offer over in Beyond Bacon.