For People Who Are Into Kittens and Explosions
Exploding Kittens is easy to learn and can be picked up and played in as little as ten minutes. It’s a firm favourite with both children and adults and whilst the game recommends an age of 7+ to play, as long as your players are able to read the small amount of text on the cards, it would be great fun for those a little younger too.
P.S. There are some fun expansions available which introduce a few new rules; this guide is for the base game only.
Objective
So how do you win Exploding Kittens? Don’t explode. That’s it. Exploding Kittens is a card game with a single deck of cards for all players to share and hiding within that deck are some exploding kitten cards, you draw one, you explode (unless you can defuse the exploding kitten as explained below). Last player standing is the winner.
Game Unboxing and Setup
It’s really easy to set up a game of Exploding Kittens. Inside the box you’ll find your deck of cards and instruction leaflet. You’ll need to remove all the cards called “Defuse” and all the cards called “Exploding Kitten” from the deck and give the rest of the deck a really good shuffle. Deal each player 4 cards face down from the deck and give each player one of the defuse cards so that everyone has 5 cards in their hand. Like most card games, only you can see your hand.
Once each player has a hand of 5, you need to finish building the deck by inserting enough exploding kitten cards so that there is 1 less than the number of players (so in a 4 player game, you would insert 3 exploding kittens into the deck). You also need to add the extra defuse cards back into the deck (if playing a 2 player game, only put 2 of the remaining cards back into the deck). Give the deck a shuffle and place it in reach of everyone and make sure there is space beside it for a discard pile. You are ready to begin playing Exploding Kittens.
Playing the Game
Players take turns, starting with whoever you decide, and continuing clockwise around the table. In your turn you can play as many cards from your hand as you like, from none at all to your whole hand, and your turn ends by drawing a card from the pile (unless you play a card that tells you not to). Here’s a breakdown of what the cards in the deck do:
Exploding Kitten – When you draw this card from the deck, reveal it, and either play a defuse card from your hand or you’re out of the game. If you play a defuse card, put the defuse card in the discard pile and place the exploding kitten card back into the deck anywhere you like.
Defuse – These are kept in hand until you draw an exploding kitten from the deck, you can play this to stop you from exploding as explained above.
Nope – You can play this card at any time you like to stop another player from doing the action on their card they just played, the only exception to this is that you can’t stop someone using a defuse card.
Attack – Play this card to end your turn without drawing a card from the deck and to make the next person take two turns in a row.
Skip – When you play this card, you end your turn without drawing a card from the deck.
Shuffle – This card allows you to shuffle the draw pile.
See the Future – If you play this card, you can look at the top 3 cards of the deck.
Favour – Another player of your choice has to give you one of their cards, they get to choose which card to give you.
Other cards – There are also other cards in the deck, tacocat, cattermelon, hairy potato cat, beard cat, and rainbow-ralphing cat.
These don’t do anything on their own but can be played as a matching pair to steal a card from another player.
And that’s it, you play as many cards as you like and do their corresponding actions (or not) and then you draw a card and play passes to the next player.
There are also a few advanced rules you can find in your rulebook for when you’re ready to take Exploding Kittens to the next level of play. I personally wouldn’t advise using the advanced rules with younger players or new-to-the-game players as there’s extra things to remember. I also mentioned above there are some additional rules included with the expansion sets which can change the gameplay, adding the expansions is great fun but it’s best to stick to the base game for the first few plays whilst you learn the trick to playing.
Ending the Game
Your game of Exploding Kittens is over when there’s only one player left standing. This happens when the other players have drawn an exploding kitten card and were unable to defuse it, meaning they’re out. Congratulations if you made it to the end!
Things to Remember!
1. Exploding Kittens is a card game for 2-5 players but you can combine two decks to play with up to 9
2. It’s a great game to play as a family, or as a party game, but younger players need to be able to read the cards to play
3. Each player starts with 5 cards in hand, 4 random cards from the deck and one defuse
4. There is no maximum hand size and a player can play as many or as few cards as they want in their turn before drawing a card to end their turn
5. You can’t play a nope card on a defuse card or an exploding kitten card but you can play a nope card to stop any other action in the game, even when its not your turn
6. You only need to insert as many exploding kittens into the deck as there are players, minus one, so there may be some cards not in play
7. Beware, Exploding Kittens can go from a bit of fun to declaring war on your family and friends in a matter of seconds, be prepared!
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