Common Sense Media Review
By Chris Morris
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Potentially great but flawed version of the card game.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 10+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Download
Videos and Photos
Exploding Kittens
What's It About?
Players take turns playing and drawing cards from the EXPLODING KITTENS deck. If you draw the "exploding kitten" card and don't have a "defuse" card in your deck, you're out. There are also action cards such as Shuffle and Nope!, which negates whatever card the previous player used, and other comically named cards such as Tacocat, Abracrab Lincoln, and Catterwocky, which -- when used in pairs or threes -- let you steal cards from another player. Players must decide which cards to play, in which order to play them, and whom to target with their cards.
Is It Any Good?
Though there's a lot to like about this adaptation of the Kickstarter smash, it ultimately falls a bit short. The illustrations, taken from the Oatmeal online comic strip, are hilarious, and the cards themselves will likely make you laugh out loud. But there's a big roadblock in finding opponents: You can play with people in the room who have the game downloaded on their devices, but you might as well buy the actual card game in that case. Currently, there's no online multiplayer option, but it's almost certainly coming in a future update. When it does, parents will need to look it over carefully to see what sort of communication options there are for players, especially young ones.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about strategy and the need to think ahead to succeed. Where in the deck should a player place the exploding kitten card? Which action cards should they hold on to?
App Details
- Devices : iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad
- Pricing structure : Paid
- Release date : January 21, 2016
- Genre : Card Games
- Topics : Animals
- Publisher : Exploding Kittens
- Version : 1.0.2
- Minimum software requirements : iOS 8.0 or later
- Last updated : October 1, 2025
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