I’d imagine it’s difficult to bring a beloved tabletop card game to iOS without losing something in the translation, but Exploding Kittens has found the trick.
Created by gaming veterans Elan Lee and Shane Small, and illustrated by internet cartoonist The Oatmeal (Matthew Inman), Exploding Kittens is like Russian Roulette, only with detonating felines. The game is fairly simple, but it has something not many gaming apps include these days: you’ll play with other people in the same room as you.
Even better, the devs have made all the in-app purchases (extra decks, new avatars) free as a launch special over the next four days. You don’t want to miss out on all the extra fun now, do you?
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When you and any number of buddies launch Exploding Kittens, one person needs to create a game, and–via a magical combination Wi-Fi and Bluetooth–everyone else can see and join the game from their own iPhones.
Players draw cards until someone pulls an Exploding Kitten from the deck, which makes them the loser. Thankfully, if the player has a Defuse card, which stops the kitten from erupting with laser pointers, belly rubs, and catnip sandwiches, the threat will be neutralized and the next player takes their chances with the deck of volatile cats. All the other cards delay the inevitable or at least try to force your opponents to draw the bad card in the deck.
Photo: Exploding Kittens
It’s a ton of fun with those mechanics alone, but you’ll also get Inman’s hilarious art and sound effects. Even choosing an avatar to represent yourself in-game is a fun-fest, with ridiculous-looking rabbits, bears, sheep, and even corn dogs for your use. The cards are similarly funny, with one that turns an opponent’s deck of cards into cat butts which then cannot be differentiated in gameplay. Also, cat butts.
If you’re into analog gaming, you can grab the original Exploding Kittens card game at Amazon for $20. It was also both the most-backed game in Kickstarter history as well as the campaign with the most number of backers, ever. As the game’s web site opines, Exploding Kittens is a card game for people who are into kittens and explosions. And laser beams. And sometimes goats.”
How can you turn that down? Grab your own copy of Exploding Kittens on the App Store for $1.99 right now, and be sure to grab all the extra stuff for free. An Android version is coming soon.
