Exploding Kittens: A card game for people who are into kittens and explosions... and laser beams... and sometimes goats.

We certainly can't be described as having been active at Games & Tea over the last 18 months.  The sad fact of the matter is that our play/review group has drifted apart, and gaming sessions are few and far between these days.  However, this doesn't mean we don't still thoroughly love a good game.  All it means is that we've accepted the fact that our content won't be as frequent as it used to be (for the time being, at least), but we'll still be posting as and when we get the chance to play and review something different.

So, we've recently introduced the first newcomer of the year to the Games & Tea library, and are filled with joy (and TNT) to bring you our thoughts on the game.  We give you Exploding Kittens; a card game for 2-5 people by Elan Lee, Shane Small and Matthew Inman.

Exploding Kittens began life as a Kickstarter campaign, and we should probably take a moment to say it's kind of a big deal.  With its simple game mechanics, illustrations from popular comics website The Oatmeal, and cats (it's the internet, cats are just what we do), it went on to become the most backed project in Kickstarter history.  With such a legacy, it was fairly safe to say we had high expectations going in!

Exploding Kittens is a card game version of Russian Roulette, with players drawing cards from a single, communal deck.  If they draw an Exploding Kitten they are blown up (not literally, in any of our playtests) and out of the game.  The game continues until only one player remains free from kitten-based destruction, and that player is declared the winner!

However, it's not a game of pure random chance.  Different cards throughout the deck allow players to defuse their Exploding Kitten, attack other players, steal cards, and a range of other actions all designed to keep the feline menace at bay!

Let's start at the beginning, and look at how the game works...

As mentioned, Exploding Kittens is a game for 2-5 players.  There are four Exploding Kitten cards in the deck, and the game should be played with one fewer kitten than there are players (so 2 EKs in a 3 player game, 3 in a 4 player game etc).  One immediately obvious benefit of this system is that it guarantees a winner by the time the deck is depleted, eliminating the discard pile reshuffle so common to most casual card games.

Each player takes one Defuse card (which we will come onto shortly) and four random cards from the deck as their starting hand, the Exploding Kitten cards are shuffled into the deck, and the game begins!

During each players turn they can play as many cards as they wish from their hand.  They may choose to play everything, or they may decide to keep hold of all their cards for the moment, and in Exploding Kittens there is no limit on hand size.  Once they're done playing cards, they end their turn by drawing one card from the top of the deck.  If they draw an Exploding Kitten, then BOOM!!!

So, in order to keep the game from being completely random and no fun whatsoever, Exploding Kittens includes a number of options to protect players from the titular moggies.  The most straightforward of these being the Defuse card...

The Defuse cards each feature a different method for distracting/pacifying a kitten, from a laser pointer to belly rubs.  The illustrations are just for amusement value though, and they all serve the same purpose.  If a player uses a Defuse card when drawing an Exploding Kitten, they remain in the game and can reinsert the kitten into the deck wherever they like.  To be cruel to the next player in line, it's often a popular move to place the Exploding Kitten back on top of the deck!  This is by no means a foolproof tactic, and can backfire drastically, if that player also has a Defuse card or one of the other varieties of card in the deck.

The first option players have in their arsenal is the Skip card.  It allows players to immediately end their turn without having to draw a card, thus avoiding the risk of explosions.  Attack cards are the next aggressive step up from Skip, not only allowing players to avoid drawing a card, but forcing the next player to take two turns!  Double explosion risk!  Shuffle cards do exactly as you'd expect, and can mess up best laid plans - especally useful in conjunction with See The Future, which givesthe player a look at the top three cards in the deck.  Favours force a player to give a card away, and the Nope card can be played responsively to negate any of the above (even another Nope, turning it into a Yup).

Between all of these assorted action cards, players will usually have an option to avoid kitty destruction early on in the game, but as time rolls on options will become depleted and the pace of the game takes on a more frantic tone!

In addition to the various actions, there are a variety of Cat cards emblazoned with a selection of non-explosive cats, from Rainbow-Barfing Cat, to Tacocat (who is very proud of his palindrome status).  These serve no purpose alone and can only be played as a pair, but once played they allow the player to steal a random card from an opponent.  Not the most devastating action available in the game by ny means, but if played against someone who only has a single card left in their hand, it can be very useful!

And that's all there is to it!  Play cards, draw cards, infuriate your opponents, and pray to the higher powers you don't find yourself on the wrong end of an Exploding Kitten!  So that's the mechanics out of the way, how does it actually fare as a game in practice?
Well for one thing it's incredibly simple to learn - we wouldn't even describe it as having a learning curve, seeing as the learning process is so quick that it never has the chance to form a distinct shape.  The box boasts "2 minutes to learn", and frankly we're convinced that one minute of that is spent figuring out that the instructions are tucked inside the box lid and then unfolding them.
Once the game gets going, it's very fast moving and entertaining.  Not only do you never have long to wait for your turn even in full 5 player games, but it's fun to watch the other players sweat and argue as the deck moves closer and closer to one of the kittens.  It can be infuriating at times when your friends mercilessly turn on you, but the number of Defuse and assorted action cards are so much higher than the number of actual Exploding Kittens, that escaping or avoiding the explosion is actually far more common than being caught in it.
Purely from an aesthetic point of view, we feel we should point out that Exploding Kittens is wonderful to look at.  Not only are the the illustrations an absolute joy, but almost all of the cards are different.  Each Exploding Kitten is getting up to different destructive mischief, each Defuse is a different method of cat pacification, each Attack is a different form of aggression, and so forth.  Only the Cat cards - which must be played as pairs - have identical illustrations, and this is understandable.

And also, pairing aesthetics with practicality, the box is pretty darn nice too! 

Decorated inside with more of Matthew Inman's illustrations, the box is sturdy, precisely the right size for the game, and is divided into two sections so you can even play a round in a place where space is simply unavailable, using the empty side of the box for the discard pile.

But the world can't all be sunshine and rainbows (or even Rainbow Barfing Cat).  The biggest weakness of Exploding Kittens has to be 2 player games.  It seems to be a running problem with card games, that as soon as you drop to two players and the "back and forth" routine begins, the game loses its lustre.  It also leaves the game susceptible to a card hoarding tactic, enabled by the unlimited hand size.  Unlike larger games, where a certain momentum can be reached, two players can simply draw and keep cards indefinitely until the single Exploding Kitten in the deck is revealed, at which point both players can simply play everything they have in one go to see who ultimately wins.  It's not a very exciting way of playing, but if one player does it then the other has to in order to compete.  In a game all about explosions, it really is the nuclear option.

The Good Points

• Quick to play, and even quicker to learn.
• Beautifully illustrated - quite possibly the nicest looking game in our library.
• An excellent way to enrage your closest friends.
• Cats.  Who doesn't like cats?!

The Bad Points

• Less enoyable and prone to being broken with only 2 players.  In fact we'd even go so far as to say it flat-out doesn't work as a 2 player game.
• A little pricey for a card game.
• Apparently some people find the notion of exploding kittens "distasteful".  Here's hoping those people never find out about Kittens in a Blender.

Recommended Number of Players: 3-5

As we highlighted above, Exploding Kittens can become something of a joyless back-and-forth slog with just two players.  Any more than two is great, and five is just epic.

Average Game Time: 10 minutes

It doesn't take particularly long to get through a round of Exploding Kittens, seeing as the draw deck never needs to be replenished.  Games can range from 2-20 minutes, so we figured 10 was a good average.

Replay Value: High

Exploding Kittens is short, light-hearted, and leaves the losing players wanting to exact revenge on the winner.  As a result, it tends to get replayed quite a lot!

The Future: Nuclear?

At the moment there are no expansions for Exploding Kittens, nor any mention of them on the official website.  However, in theory it should be easy enough to incorporate a few more cards and different types, and the box definitely has room to accomodate them.  Given the incredible Kickstarter success of the game and a strong commercial follow up, we certainly wouldn't be surprised to see more on the horizon in the near future.

Price: £18

There are currently two versions of Exploding Kittens: the version featured in this review, and a NSFW Edition, which is somewhat more adult and apparantly features Boob Wizards.  Either version will set you back roughly £18, and are quite readily available from gaming stores.  We'd like to point out that yes, you can get them for £16 on Amazon, but we didn't for two reasons:

1) We like to support our local hobby stores, and would encourage all gamers to do the same.

2) The copies on Amazon don't meow.  Check your local gaming store and you can probably get a copy in a meowing box.

OVERALL SCORE: 8.5/10 (3-5 players), 2/10 (2 players)

 Tea consumed during this review: None.  Lemsip all the way, on account of a lovely cold and sinusitis.  Congestion Rating: 4000/10

Batman Fluxx: A First Impressions Review/Preview

As most UK-based gamers will be well aware, this weekend is the 2015 UK Games Expo: an annual event held at the Hilton Metropole Hotel at Birmingham's NEC.  This year was the second year that we were in attendance, and whilst a general write-up will be forthcoming, there was something else we wanted to report on first and foremost.

A couple of weeks ago whilst pootling about on Twitter, we saw a retweet of an announcement for Batman Fluxx.  As fans of both of those words, this got pulses racing a little here at Games & Tea HQ.  It's scheduled for release in early August, so it was put right at the top of our shopping list and no more was thought of it.

What we didn't realise was that this weekend Looney Labs would have a table at the UK Games Expo, and that Batman Fluxx would be one of the games available for demo (along with a couple of other Fluxx prototypes, which we can't mention due to the copyright negotiations still ongoing).  So we had the opportunity to have a look through the deck, play a game with Fluxx creator Andrew Looney himself, and take a few photos along the way!  Seeing as we completely overlooked the fact that is was Games & Tea's 2nd birthday just a few days ago, this felt very much like a belated present!

The head Looney himself - Andrew Looney - proudly showing off one of the latest additions to the Fluxx family!

Now whilst we have done reviews of games in development before, this is the first time we've reviewed a game after just a single playthrough, and without a reference copy in front of us.  For this reason we've branded this as a first impressions review/preview, and will be putting up a full review once we've gotten our grubby mitts on our very own copy, and put it through its paces to determine its replay value etc.

As with our last few Fluxx reviews, we'll be dispensing with the basic gameplay mechanics, and just address the elements of Batman Fluxx which make it stand out from the rest of the family.  For those unfamiliar with Fluxx on the whole, take a quick look at our Monty Python Fluxx review, in which we explained the game's core mechanic.

So to start with the basics, Batman Fluxx is Fluxx with a Batman theme - yes, this may sound like we're stating the obvious, but the point we're getting at is that you'll find the familiar New Rule and Action cards in the deck which are fairly universal, eg. Draw 4, Trash a New Rule, Draw 2 and Use 'Em, etc etc.  And - as with all other Fluxxes - the backs of the cards are of the same universal design, meaning that they can be integrated into other decks.

Yes, this means you can have Pirate Batman Fluxx.

"Bring me the Jokarr!"

On the front of the cards, the first thing to notice is the illustration style.  Fluxx has always had a cartoony element to it, which both adds to its charm and serves to remind players that it's supposed to be a casual, fun game at its heart.  Whilst the recent Love Letter: Batman Edition featured illustrations from the New52 comics series, such serious imagery would look very much out of place in a Fluxx deck.  Instead, Batman Fluxx is filled with illustrations in the style of Batman: The Animated Series, which fits in very well with the general Fluxx feel.  Combined with the classy art-deco style sidebar and font, and Batman Fluxx is a game which is aesthetically very pleasing to play.

The Keepers in Batman Fluxx cover a range or characters, gadgets and locations.  As with most recent Fluxx incarnations, many of the Keepers have additional rules and abilities, just to keep the game moving at a more interesting pace.  Bruce Wayne, for example (above), must be discarded if Batman ever hits the table.  The Batmobile can be discarded to take an extra turn.  The Bank increases your draw by 2, and so on.  Other Keepers we remember off the top of our heads included Robin, Batgirl, Commissioner Gordon, the Bat Signal, and Wayne Manor.

The Creepers (of which we sadly forgot to take any photos, due to being so caught up in the gameplay!) are where the game truly becomes interesting.  Each Creeper in Batman Fluxx is one of Gotham City's famous supervillains, and so there are a fair few of them in the deck.  The Joker, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, The Penguin and The Riddler are all out in force, to name a few, so the chances are your favourite villain will be in there somewhere!  Now the most Creeper-heavy Fluxx edition to date is Zombie Fluxx, and it worked very well because many of the game's Goals required Creepers in order to achieve victory.  Batman Fluxx works in a similar way, with Crazy Love, for example, giving the win to the player with The Joker and Harley Quinn.  Now the interesting thing with Batman Fluxx - and the thing which makes its Creepers unique - is that if the active Goal doesn't include Creepers then no one can win if there are Creepers on the table.  This is a wonderful mechanic, first of all in that it gives players a Batman-style task of cleaning up the crime in Gotham City, and secondly in adding a whole new tactical element, as win conditions generally become harder.

That's basically all there is to say at this point about the new additions to the game!  In terms of how it all works, it does really capture the Batman theme while keeping things casual.  Things like the "no one can win" rule with the Creepers, Bruce Wayne's exodus from the table as soon as Batman appears, and the Bat-Signal's ability to 'summon' the dark knight from an opponent all fit together nicely.  The Goals we saw during our game were all nice little references to the cartoon/comics lore, such as Secretly His Daughter for having Commisioner Gordon and Batgirl (we are fans of Babs over here).  And of course the overall aesthetic is very pleasing, feeling very much like the cherry on top.

If we had to nit-pick (and as game reviewers, we do feel it's our duty), the win-condition difficulty increase as a result of the Creepers did feel like it would steer games of Batman Fluxx more towards longer play times than shorter ones.  Fluxx has always been renowned for games lasting anywhere from 90 seconds to 90 minutes, but the Creeper rule does seem to skew things more towards the latter, which may put off a few players who would normally consider Fluxx to be a filler game.

One thing we will be interested to see, however, is whether it can convert a few non-Fluxx fans.  It's always been a Marmite game in the gaming community, and we come heavily down on the 'love it' side of the line.  With Batman being so wildly popular, we can genuinely picture a few folks being swayed over onto our side, where we will be ready to greet them with hugs, cake and "I told you so's".

With a normal review this is where we'd do a summary breaking down the pros and cons, the price, average play time and so on, but seeing as this only a first impressions review we'll dispense with that until the full review in a couple of months time.  We will, however, quite happily give it a preliminary score based on our overall feelings from the day...

PRELIMINARY SCORE: 9/10

Love Letter: Batman Edition Review

Good day to you, ladies and gentlegamers! As we've mentioned in the past, we thoroughly enjoy every review we bring to our readers, but we get an extra bit of joy from reviewing a new release - purely because of the fact that it allows us to feel as though we're on the ball for once!  So, brace yourselves for probably the shortest gameplay walkthrough we've ever brought you, as we take a look at Love Letter: Batman Edition by Seiji Kanai, from Alderac Enterainment.

Love Letter itself is a very popular and well-established casual card game, and has been a staple of many gamers' collections for quite some time.  Even with comic book heroes very much ascendant in recent years, this is probably one of the most surprising games to receive a superhero paint job!

To date we haven't actually played the original Love Letter so will be unable to draw direct comparisons, but we're chalking this up as an advantage as it leaves us able to dissect the Batman Edition on its own merits, and give it an unbiased score.

Love Letter: Batman Edition is a competitive card game for 2-4 players, in which each player takes on the role of the Dark Knight, and has to outshine the other Batmonei (we established this as the plural of "Batman" on a Hobbynomicon podcast!) in recapturing the escaped inmates of Arkham Asylum.

At the beginning of the review we mentioned that this would probably be our shortest gameplay explanation to date, and this is entirely down to the fact that Love Letter: Batman Edition is a mind-bogglingly simple game to play - to such an extent that we were left wondering why we never picked up a copy of the original version.  Before you click away though, we like to think our Cards Against Humanity review proved that simple mechanics do not a bad game make, and similarly our Arkham Horror review went to show that complex mechanics don't necessarily pave the road to a good gaming experience.  So stick with us as we go through Love Letter: Batman Edition and see how it plays out...

Contents-wise, Love Letter: Batman Edition is a very light game.  There are 16 Game Cards, each printed with lavish artwork depicting either Batman, Robin, or one of the many major supervillains from the Batman universe (for those DC fans interested, with the exception of The Joker they're all New 52-based).  Each of these cards contains a nice, plain-English explanation of how that card functions, which we'll go through shortly, and a number in the top-left corner which dictates the card's value (the higher, the better).

As an extra little assist for players, there are also four card lists included in the box, explaining the value of each character, the card's abilities, as well as a reminder of how many of each card are in the deck (there may be five Batmonei, but there is only one Mr J!).

"I'm Batman!" "No, I'm Batman!" "I'm Batman, and so's my wife!"

This just leaves a bag of small wooden Batman tokens, which are used to keep track of the scores across each round, and the rulebook.

And that's it!  Not a great deal to look at (although certainly very pretty), but let's put them all together and see what happens...

The aim of Love Letter: Batman Edition is to gain 7 Batman tokens before any of the other players, through rounding up the highest-valued Arkham escapees.

To start the game the Game Cards are shuffled and then one card is randomly discarded face-down, not to be used throughout the rest of the game.  Lover Letter: Batman Edition is a game of bluffing and deduction, so having one unknown card missing from the deck adds an extra challenge to the latter.

Each player draws a single card to create their starting hand, and then the round begins.  During each players (very quick) turn, they draw one card off the top of the deck, and then have to discard one from their hand,  Some of the cards have positive effects, some have negative effects, either of which can be used to try and misdirect the other players about the remaining card.  Some can be used to eliminate other players from the round, whilst some eliminate the player who discarded it, and one way to win the Batman token for the round is to be the last Batman standing.

If the deck is depleted then the round finishes, and the player with the highest value card in their hand wins the Batman token, or - in the event of a tie - the player with the highest value of discarded cards wins.

Confused?  That's fair, it's a far simpler game in practice than on paper!

For example...

Going back to Batman himself from the earlier photo, his discard ability allows a player to guess at the card in another player's hand.  At the beginning of the game this could be an outright guess, but as more cards are discarded deduction can start to creep in.  Of course players do have to rely on complete honesty from one-another, but frankly anyone who can't be trusted through a casual game has no place in any gaming group, in our opinion!  Batman is the lowest value card in the deck, so keeping him in hand serves very little purpose in the long-run, so he will usually get discarded/activated a lot.

Harley Quinn is a high-value escapee, with a value of 7 (second highest only to her puddin' - The Joker - himself), so keeping her in hand is usually going to be a good play.  However, her ability forces her to be discarded if Two-Face or Poison Ivy are drawn.  In the example above the player has just drawn Bane, who allows players to basically play a quick game of Top Trumps!  Now whilst the obvious play would be to discard Bane and hope Harley's 7 is enough to knock out an opponent, a sneakier play might be to discard Harley, leading the other players to believe either Two-Face or Ivy is in your hand.  Throwing the other players off the scent for a turn like this can be a devastating move, especially with such high card turnover and fast deck-depletion.

Each character in Love Letter: Batman Edition serves a different purpose, and learning how and when to use them most effectively is the key to victory... that, and a good poker face.  Catwoman, for example, allows a player to look at an opponent's hand.  Two-Face allows a player to trade hands with an opponent altogether.  Robin allows a player to ignore the effects of other cards for a full turn.  And The Joker (a personal favourite) puts the player who discarded him out of the round - you are playing as Batman, after all, so allowing Gotham's most notorious criminal to slip through your grasp is grounds for immediate dismissal.

As mentioned above (although now with a bit of context!) being the only non-eliminated player wins a Batman point, or after the deck is depleted, having the highest-value inmate in your clutches snags you that little wooden bat-symbol.  At the end of each round the deck is shuffled and the process is repeated until one player has 7 of those coveted points.

So that's Love Letter: Batman Edition.  With a learning time of roughly 90 seconds (no kidding, that's actually how long it took us to get a game going!) it's one of the quickest and easiest games to pick up on the market, but with some light-hearted theatricality and deception, it's still incredibly fun to play.

The physical components of the game are manufactured to a high standard, and the artwork - as mentioned earlier - is very nice to look at.  Being a quick game to play, it makes an excellent warm-up, wind-down, or intermission game to any games night, and the turns rotate so quickly that it feels more like a party game, as you always seem to be taking an action of some sort.  It's simplicity and short play-time make it an excellent game for younger gamers with shorter attention spans as well, so if you have a young Bat-fan in the family and you want to draw them into your gaming hobby, this might be a good place to start!

Criticisms of the game come very few and far between, however we've always prided ourselves on our impartiality, and so will work to find any negative points we can.  First of all it's not so great with just 2 players.  Even with the mystery card removed at the beginning of the game, the deductive side of Love Letter: Batman Edition falls a little short when you only have one opponent to outfox.  The only other criticism (and ye gods we're having to scrape the nitpicking barrel here!) is that there will inevitably be people getting upset over the choice of villains in the deck.  With a limited-sized deck and so many Arkham alumni to choose from, some people will end up having their favourites missed out.  (On a personal note, the inclusion of The Joker, Harley Quinn and Catwoman was enough to keep me happy, anyone else is purely a bonus!)

The Good Points

• Quick to play.
• Even quicker to learn!
• An excellent entry-level game for younger gamers, or those new to the specialist game scene.
• Nicely tactical, in spite of the simple mechanics.
• Very well presented, with nice artwork throughout.
• "I'M BATMAN!"

The Bad Points

• Limited appeal with only 2 players.
• No Riddler or Penguin, to name but two, so Nigma and Cobblepot fans will be disappointed.
• Very difficult to resist the urge to growl "I'M BATMAN!" with the Batman card in hand.  Anyone?  Oh, maybe that's just me then.

Recommended Number of Players: 3-4

As mentioned, Love Letter: Batman Edition struggles a little with 2 players, but it comes to life with 3 and excels with 4.

Average Game Time: 20 minutes

Each round of Love Letter: Batman Edition only lasts a couple of minutes, but with a target of 7 Batman points a full 4 player game has the potential to cap at 25 rounds!  However, this is unlikely to happen, and 20 minutes is a good average game time, which can even be shortened if needed by reducing the number of required points.

Replay Value: High

With its short play-time, this is a good game for filling gaps, whether a lunch break, or a pause between bigger games on a game night.  As a result, it's likely to be a game which is played little and often, and so will be very easy to keep coming back to.

The Future: Darkest just before the dawn...

Okay we have to admit that comment wasn't really relevant, but we just thought it'd look really good there!  Love Letter: Batman Edition is a standalone game, so really doesn't have anywhere further to go.

Price: £14

The RRP on Love Letter: Batman Edition is £14, and there are two versions available.  We've shown you the boxed version (as we like having pretty boxed games filling our shelves), but there is also a bagged version, which doesn't come with the box, but includes a Batman-embroidered canvas bag for ease of transportation.  Both retail for the same price, and with both Love Letter and Batman being very popular, we imagine it will be readily available on the shelves of most gaming stores before long!

OVERALL SCORE: 9.5/10

 Tea consumed during this review: Typhoo, milk and 2 sweeteners.  Brew Rating: 7.5/10

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