Draw a card and hope it is not the kitten. That is the core of it, and it takes about a minute to teach. The deck is stacked with exploding kittens. Draw one and you are out, unless you are holding a Defuse card, in which case you slide the kitten back into the deck anywhere you like, including right on top for the next player.
Everything in between is delay and mischief. Skip ends your turn, Attack makes the next player take two, Shuffle buries the kitten again when you have lost track, See the Future peeks at the top three cards, and matching pairs let you steal blind from someone's hand. Remembering where the kitten went, and making somebody else draw it, is the whole skill.
Rounds run about fifteen minutes, which makes it the filler at the start of a session or the last thing played before closing. Two to five players, age seven and up, and it survives being played badly, loudly, and with an audience.
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Game details
Category
Party
Complexity weight
1.07 / 5
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