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

Felinia, Part 2: Gameplay & Verdict

So in our previous entry we examined the box content of Michael Schacht's little-known Felinia, a 2-4 player game from Matagot.  Now we're going to run through the gameplay and give our thoughts on the ups and downs of it as a product in general.

 

 

In Part 1 we mentioned that the board is double-sided, for basic or advanced gameplay.  For our review we're going to just be looking at the basic gameplay.  To start with each player must squabble amongst themselves over which colour of cat-trading family they wish to control, and then assume possession of the appropriate player card, Bid Counters, Money Counter, and Merchant Tokens.  The Money Counter for each player keeps track of their current wealth, and at the start of the game is placed on the number '2' along the upper edge of their player card.  Each player is then given 2 Merchandise Tiles, which are dictated by the rulebook based on the number of players (there is a quick-reference card to prevent players from having to keep the rulebook out at all times).

 

 

The Auction Houses on the left of the board then need to receive their initial stock for your merchant-cats to place their bids on.  As you can see, each auction house has 3 square spaces; these are the free slots for Merchandise Tiles, and at the beginning of the game each auction house received 2 tiles randomly chosen from the merchandise bag.

 

Then the right hand side of the board needs to be prepared, with the five nations of Felinia.  The Trade Tokens are each placed face-down on a space containing a trade symbol, in a province matching the colour of the token.

Once all of the tokens are placed, the final items in the initial setup are the galleons.  These are lined up next to the auction houses, and the Ship Tiles are shuffled to form a deck.  The top four cards are placed into the galleons, and then the setup is complete!  Your merchant-cats are now ready to start trading and building their empire!

 

This may sound like a lot of setup time, but in reality it takes less than 5 minutes to prepare the board for a game of Felinia.  It's a small price to pay for what will prove to be an interesting hour of cut-throat business management.

 

As we've mentioned, the game features auction houses and Bid Tokens, so obviously bidding is the way to acquire the merchandise needed to sail to Felinia, so let's look at how that works.

Each player starts the turn with 3 Bid Tokens, and each of these can be used to increase their coins for the turn or to place a bid.  To place a bid, the players simply place their tokens next to the appropriate auction houses.  Once all tokens have been placed by all players the bidding ends, and deals can start to be made.

 

 

The bids at the two auction houses above have finished with very different outcomes.  The auction house on the left is resolved first, starting with the topmost Bid Counter.  As there is only 1 bid counter, the yellow player just has to spend 1 coin to buy a single Merchandise Tile of their choice.  Next, the auction house on the right is resolved with greater complication. The topmost counter is red, so the red player gets first pick of the Merchandise Tiles.  Seeing as there are 3 counters at this auction house, the red player must spend 3 coins to purchase a Merchandise Tile.  Once they've made their choice, the red counter is removed and the blue player can make their choice, but as there are now only 2 counters left their purchase will only cost them 2 coins.  After their counter is removed the green player is left with the one remaining tile, but even though they probably will no longer be getting the tile they were after, at least it's now only costing them 1 coin.

This is an excellent bidding system, and each turn will leave the players mulling over the awkward choice between buying more lower-cost Merchandise Tiles, or paying through the nose for the one they really need.  But how do you decide which tile you really need to buy?  Let us show you...

 

At the port of Katzburg the galleons are waiting to ferry the players' Merchant Tokens off to the continent of Felinia.  To board a galleon the player must have just completed a deal at an auction house and be in possession of the correct goods (shown at the back of the ship).  In this case the upper ship requires 2 grey tiles and 1 purple, and the lower ship requires 2 purple tiles and one green.  Once a player has met these requirements they discard their tiles into the bag and place a merchant onto to foremost vacant space on the galleon.  When the galleon is full to capacity it sets sail at the end of the next round of auctions, and the second phase of the game begins.

 

Once the galleon reaches the appropriate nation of Felinia, the merchants disembark one by one.  They are then able to turn over 2 Trade Tokens, and then move 2 spaces to end in a province containing one of these tokens.  This token then goes to the merchant's controlling player, counting towards their final score.  As well as gaining Trade Tokens, the placement of the Merchant Tokens themselves is another strategic factor.  A lone merchant is worth 1 point at the end of the game, but 2 merchants in adjacent provinces are worth 2 points each, 3 adjacent merchants are worth 3 points each, and so on.  This doesn't just push the players to try and keep their trading outposts close together, but also can lead to players deliberately setting up their outposts to interrupt a line of their opponent's merchants before their score can rack up too high.

 

When all merchants have disembarked the galleons return to the port, their Ship Tile is discarded and replaced with a new one from the top of the deck.  The auction houses are all fully replenished, the first turn card passes clockwise to the next player, and a new round begins.  There are two ways the game can end; the first player places his final Merchant Token on a ship, or the final Ship Tile is placed from the deck onto a galleon.  In either case all ships set sail (regardless of whether they're full to capacity), and once the merchants have established their outposts the game is over.  Points are tallied and the winner can be declared.

 

Felinia is admittedly quite a slow game to begin with.  It tends to take 2-3 turns before the first ship sets sail, but once that happens and the trading outposts begin to get established, the game quickly accelerates and becomes quite busy and compelling.  It does feel very much as though it's divided into two halves; bidding and exploration, with bidding being the greater aspect of the game, but these two halves do mesh extremely well, leaving a smooth, cleanly-running game system.

 

As we've mentioned a couple of times, Felinia is a very strategic game, with many ways to foil your opponents.  If it's obvious that your opponent is after one particular Merchandise Tile, you can make it your mission to outbid them at all costs, even if it's not an item of merchandise you particularly need.  If they're establishing a number of outposts in close succession then you can damage their final score by landing your merchant right in the middle of their territory.  If they're collecting a high number of purple Trade Tokens you can try to sneak in and grab a few of your own to prevent them from getting the maximum score out of their own.

 

As you can tell, we were very impressed with Felinia overall.  It's simple to pick up, tough to master, and if played with some strategically-minded people it can prove to be a very competitive (and slightly back-stabbing) game.  Set-up and put-away time are both mercifully short, and the game itself tends to clock in at around the hour mark, making it a good game to get involved in without kissing goodbye to your entire evening.

Another interesting point to note with Felinia is the way it plays with 2, 3 or 4 players.  Most specialist games we've reviewed at Games & Tea don't work quite so well with just 2 players, but with this one it's a little different.  With just 2 players there doesn't tend to be much by the way of cut-throat outbidding, or back-stabbing merchant placement.  There's enough room on the board for both players to operate without clashing too often, and the game will often end with a pair of large, well-established trading outposts operating on the continent, with one player scraping a victory by the narrowest of margins.  With 3 or 4 players then space on Felinia becomes a more valuable commodity, and ruthless tactics will start to come into effect.  The game usually ends with much smaller, fragmented empires being established, leaving each player with a significantly lower score, but still a close-run fight to the finish.  Having played games with all numbers of players, we have to say that these two styles of play are very different, but neither is particularly less enjoyable than the other.

The main negative point about Felinia is not a fault of the game itself, but more about the genre.  trading/auction games are a particular niche in the specialist game market, and not one that appeals to all gamers.  This was our first taste of such a game at Games & Tea, and if others run on a similar mechanic then we'd certainly be willing to give them a shot.  However, those who are not fans of trading games will be unlikely to find anything here to surprise and hook them, and would probably walk away from a game of Felinia without a feeling of satisfaction.

 

So let's give this bizarre and intriguing merchant-cat game a breakdown, and a final score out of 10...

 

The Good Points

• Whilst intimidating at first glance, Felinia is quick to pick up, and a whole board of new players will be comfortable with their actions before the end of their first game.
• The auction system is well thought out, and captures the feeling that players are properly bidding for their first choice in merchandise.
• The scoring system with the Merchant Tokens and Trade Tokens is very strategic, and rewards players for planning ahead with their bids.
• It's a game about Elizabethan cats (with opposable thumbs) building spice empires in a far-off land!  Even if for nothing else, everyone should play Felinia once for that reason!

The Bad Points

• As an auction/trading game, Felinia will only appeal to a certain audience of specialist gamer.  If you're not a trading fan, then this game will be unlikely to do anything for you.
• The wooden Merchant Tokens are a bit disappointing - in a game about merchant-cats, you'd expect the playing pieces to at least represent these feline entrepreneurs.

Recommended Number of Players: 4

Whilst it does play very differently, Felinia works well with any number of players from 2-4.  If we had to choose a number of players though, we'd have to choose 4.  As long as you're playing with a group who aren't going to take things too seriously and throw a tantrum, the sneaky and competitive nature of a large-scale game can be a lot of fun for all involved.

 

Average Game Time: 60 minutes

An average run of Felinia will take roughly an hour.  The first few rounds tend to run very slowly, but once ships start to set sail and the Trade Tokens pile up, the pace quickens rapidly and the final turn of the game can sneak up unnervingly soon.

 

Replay Value: High

As with any game where strategy is the key to victory, the replay value of Felinia is high.  Every defeat is a lesson in how to adjust your tactics, and every victory vindicates your style of play.  The addition of the advanced board allows the game to refresh itself once you've mastered the basics, adding new rules such as food cards, which can be discarded to make your merchants travel further after disembarking from their ships.

 

The Future: Go Backwards

Unfortunately the future of Felinia is a bleak one.  There have been no expansions for it, nor are the likely to be any, so if you've finally reached the stage where repeat playthroughs of the game hold no appeal then there's not much that can be done to refresh the game.  However, Felinia is actually the third game in Michael Schacht's Gold Trilogy, following on from The Golden City and Valdora respectively.  Whilst we have yet to track down and test out either of these games, the odds are that if you're looking for something in the same vain then these will be a good place to start.

 

Price: £30

Felinia will set you back around the £30 mark, and for a nice little game like this one it's well worth the money.  Unfortunately the fact that it looks like some kind of crazy cat-people game will probably not endear gamers to pay the full price for it, which is a shame because inside the box is a well thought out game which would be an excellent addition to a collection.  We picked it up from a UK discount store called The Works for just £10, having bought it with the expectation that it was going to be average at best, but amusing for the cat aspect.

As mentioned at the beginning of the review, Felinia is not one of the more mainstream specialist games, and availability could be an issue.  If your local store can get it in then that's fantastic, but you're more than likely to be left hunting for it on the internet.  If any of our UK readers are interested in the game, then we'd strongly recommend checking out your local branch of The Works to try and grab a copy before they're gone!

 

 

 

OVERALL SCORE: 8/10

 

Starting with Felinia, all of Games & Tea's scored will now be given out of 10, to give a better impression of our opinion.

 

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Felinia, Part 1: Box Contents

A lot of the games we've taken a look at so far on Games & Tea (and which we have on our imminent review lineup) are quite mainstream as far as specialist games go.  This may sound like a contradiction in terms, but the point we're getting at is that if you visit your average specialist game store then the chances are you'll be able to pick them up without too much trouble.  We certainly don't object to this (as long as the game's good to play then we're more than happy), but our intial plan with this blog wasn't just to give you our opinions on those games, but also to shine a light on some lesser known gems which might have otherwise passed our readers by.

With this in mind, our latest review has us casting a critical eye over Michael Schacht's Felinia, from Matagot, a 2-4 player game where players compete to set up the most successful spice empire.



 

 

 

The first thing you'll notice about Felinia is cats.  Specifically cats in period costumes who are, in fact, the ones building the spice empires.  Now at first glance this might seem like utter madness, but here at Games & Tea we're absolutely convinced that it's a work of marketing genius.  Everyone who we've introduced the game to has been sold on the idea once they've heard the premise of 'Elizabethan cats with thumbs, trading to build a spice empire in a far-off land.'  It's a unique enough hook to get people interested, and once they're in they discover it's actually a very good little game.

 

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.  We've got the entirety of Part 2 to talk about how it plays, for now let's just take a look at what you'll find in the box.

 

 

As you'd expect, the first thing you'll come across upon opening this cat-covered box is the game board.  The board consists of two halves, with the auction houses of the city of Katzburg on the right hand side, and the various nations and provinces of the continent of Felinia on the left.  But there's something slightly different about this as far as game boards go...

 

 

...it's double-sided!  The first side of the board is used for playing with the basic ruleset, whereas the second side is for the advanced version of the game.  The gameplay is actually very easy to pick up, and so the first side is more like a tutorial board, and players will probably favour the advanced side once they've got their heads around the game.

 

 

Underneath the board you'll find a whole host of various card tokens, just waiting to be popped out of their sheets.  Felinia is a trading game, after all, and your merchant-cats are going to need a range of merchandise to keep their customers happy!

 

 

As mentioned, Felinia is a game for up to 4 players, and so there's a card for each player to keep track of their wealth during each turn.  The coins numbered 0-6 around the upper edge indicate how much money they have to spend at auction during each turn, whereas the coins along the bottom allow players to add to their wealth each turn (this will be addressed in Part 2 of the review).

 

 

The actual playing pieces of Felinia are no-frills wooden counters, each coloured to match the player cards.  Each player begins the game with 10 Merchants (top), 3 Bid Counters (middle), and 1 Money Tracker (bottom).  Opening the bag of these wooden pieces was the first (and only) moment in the unboxing of Felinia that we felt a little disappointed.  With a game about spice-trading cats we were hoping that the playing pieces would reflect the game's bizarre basis, but the Merchants do very much look like regular human beings.

 

 

Next up we have a small fleet of trading galleons.  These were amongst the card sheets of tokens, and even though there was no assembly instructions they were quick and easy to put together.  Assembly of all four ships took less than 5 minutes.  These are used to ferry the players Merchants from the auction houses at Katzburg to the provinces of Felinia, where they will set up trading outposts in the players' names.

 

 

Felinia also contains 20 Ship Tiles.  Four of these are slotted into the tops of the galleons, determining their docking location (based on the colour of the deck), departure time, Merchant capacity (represented by the number of white circles), and boarding cost (represented by the 3 crates of goods towards the rear of the deck).  The unused Ship Tiles form a deck at the side of the board.

 

 

Now that our cats have transport, they'll need items to trade!  There are 45 Merchandise Tiles in the game, of 5 different types; rare books, fine wines, precision watches, luxury clothing, and refined glassware.  These different merchandise types don't really come into effect during gameplay, and so we've only ever regarded them by colour.

 

 

One of the nice little touches to the game is the merchandise bag.  The Merchandise Tiles are assigned to the various auction houses at random at the beginning of each turn, and so the bag is used to prevent anyone from trying to sneakily rig the auctions.

 

 

Whenever a Merchant sets up a trading outpost, the player is rewarded with a Trade Token.  These tokens bear the colour of one of the nations of Felinia on the back (which will determine its starting location), and a colour and points value on the front.  The more trading outposts the player establishes, the more of these they'll collect, and the higher their final tally of victory points will be.  As you can see the values aren't fixed (ie. 1-4, 1-3 etc), and this is a clever little mechanic.  Let's take the grey one (centre) as an example, with a value of 1-3.  If at the end of the game the player has one of these, it's worth just 1 point.  If they possess two, then they're each worth 2 points, and if they possess three or more then each is worth 3 points.  This encourages players to become a little bit strategic with their outpost-building, as collecting Trade Tokens of the same type can often be a comfortable way to ensure a runaway victory!

 

 

And last but not least, we have Felinia's three different card types; spice, gold and food.  Food only comes into play in the advanced version of the game, whereas spice and gold are a staple of the game.  These can be sold to give the players extra coins for bidding, or they can be saved to score victory points at the end of the game.

 

 

Okay, they were almost last.  Finally we have the First Player card.  The first player marker is a common one on specialist games and so we normally wouldn't bother adding a photo to our box content listing, but seeing as it bears an illustration of those delightful spice-trading cats we just had to put it up here.

 

So that's what you'll get for your money if you choose to invest in Felinia.  This may look intimidating at first glance as it's a game with a lot of elements, but as we mentioned earlier it's very easy to pick up, and certainly rewarding to play.  Come back for Part 2 to see just how these pieces all work together, and what Games & Tea thought of Felinia overall.