Is Exploding Kittens a bad game?

Can you play Exploding Kittens offline?

This guide is for you.

When I'm looking to see if a game is an absolute must-have or a game that I will likely just go through, the first thing I do is try to check whether it is a mobile title or not. Now, this won't tell you much when it comes to other parts of the experience (is there some online component or not, for example) but will say a lot when it comes to playing it offline. Because that is what we gamers spend the bulk of our time doing. Going out and about and adventuring. Sometimes as friends, sometimes just with ourselves. When we're by ourselves, we are usually on the move too - on foot, in cars, in trains, in boats, across the seas, overland, around buildings, or, if we live under a mountain range, in space.

The amount of time we spend in these types of situations where we only have our hands and sometimes our mouth occupied and no one else around us is staggering. In fact it is so huge that no one really thinks about it. This fact has been recently brought to light when the government began asking us how many of those hours were spent sitting at work and we responded we couldn't give an estimate, and they have asked us to try harder and give a guess based on a series of surveys that are more and more rare. So, even if you didn't think about how much time you spend being alone and by yourself, you should, because it is significant.

And while that has nothing to do with the games themselves, this one is about one game that happens to be perfect for spending large chunks of your free time in such settings. Exploding Kittens is the first smartphone card game I've played that I actually enjoyed very much and would happily recommend. And one I would play almost every single day if I didn't have obligations, like school or work or family. And it's so good because there is literally nothing you can do wrong with it, especially if you play in a group with people who care as much about the same thing as you do.

So yeah, what does this have to do with the games I write about and discuss?

What is the NSFW version of Exploding Kittens?

It's NSFW Kittens.

That means people in a relationship with cats, or people that like cats, can still enjoy this game. You get to play with kittens for some reason. You get a kitten in exchange for watching someone else play Exploding Kittens with their own kitten.

I tried to read the Wikipedia article on Exploding Kittens, but no dice. There's so much information, I'm not sure if I even understood anything. So I'll just do my best to play it and give a simple overview of the rules.

It's pretty simple, you pick one of your cards at the start of the round. As many as possible must be selected on each turn, and must blow up in some form (explode, burn, etc). A countdown timer starts at the same time as you select your card, and will run out whenever you have not blown up at least one card yet. The winner of the game is the last player to blow up 5 cards and have 3 left.

You can try a few things at the beginning. If you want to pick a card as soon as the timer hits zero, it's called the wild card, and gives you the ability to explode multiple cards. You are also able to use an action token to gain 2 random points, but you need to use up those points by blowing up one card before another two cards appear on the board.

The rules state, you gain 3 points if you can explode 4 cards. But if you fail to explode one, you lose 3 points and draw the card instead. This was confusing me because I thought if I fail twice and lose 3 points, then I won't explode until the timer runs out, but that's apparently not how it works.

If you pick a card that explodes in your face, then you lose 4 points. That makes it easier to explode more than one at a time. When you lose points, you immediately gain them back to give you a slight advantage over your opponents. Unless someone uses the wild card, then you can gain points by choosing not to explode a card.

The wild card is great. It lets you explode multiple cards without blowing up two in a row.

Is Exploding Kittens a bad game?

It can't be any good, right?

It's not a serious videogame like Serious Sam, it's just a kids' card game.

There are no rules. There are no stakes. You have no objective. I mean, you have to win, of course, but no one has ever won Exploding Kittens, because the game is only meant for kids and grown-ups. (And then, when you do win, you get all hot and bothered and excited, because, duh, it feels great to win!)

So the game is fun and that makes sense: It's designed to be a fun, enjoyable experience. If you don't enjoy that sort of thing then why would you play the game? Of course you'd be bored by the thought of winning, and bored by the process of losingthat's what I did on my first playthroughbut it turns out that I actually enjoyed playing Exploding Kittens.

"Hey, have you played Exploding Kittens yet?" one of my friends says over a beer in a dive bar in Seattle. I'm too tired to speak, or even nod and smile, but he already knows the answer: No, I haven't had the pleasure.

"Me neither," he says. "But, as you can see from the title and cover art, this is a bad game." I don't say anything, so he continues. "I've played it a few times now, and it's not a very good game. They got lucky with their cover art, 'cause it looks good. But that's only 'cause it kind of looks like an exploding kitten. That's it. So if you're reading this you probably should try it out. Not that you'll find out whether it's a bad or a good game, but just go for it. Don't you want to know if the game is good or bad? It's not fun knowing! So you might as well click on this link right now."

So that's the way the game begins, and it does end. On the second playthrough I decide to play straight through and win at least one game, but before I am even to the game's end, it's clear that I am going to lose.