Exploding Kittens doesn’t have enough bang as a mobile game yet

Exploding Kittens kaboomed its way to the top of the paid-apps category in its first few days on the Apple iTunes App Store. That was an auspicious debut, coming after the tabletop-card version was a big hit last year. And it owes it all to a brilliant name and a concept of playing a Russian roulette card game with kittens that blow up.

But does it really live up to its billing? We’ve had a look at the iOS game now, as I have squared off in many matches against my 12-year-old kid. We’re still playing it during our free moments, but it’s not as explosively addictive as I would have hoped for a $1.99 release, which is a rarity in an app store full of free-to-play titles. The title is fun, but I expected more. It isn’t quite there yet.

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Exploding Kittens had so much going for it. I wonder how it could have fallen short. The tabletop version certainly seems hilarious enough. But Paul Rush, CEO of developer Substantial, acknowledged in an interview that it’s not easy to adapt a card game to mobile. The devs have succeeded in creating outstanding sounds to go with cards that let you “kitty slap” other players or give them diarrhea. The cards will make you laugh out loud. But, I can understand why the app only has 2.5 out of 5 stars so far in the player ratings.

It’s a disappointment because the tabletop card game was the most funded game in Kickstarter history, raising more than $8 million from 219,382 contributors. Its creators are Elan Lee, the creator of Edoc Laundry; Matt Inman, the creator of The Oatmeal online comic; and Shane Small, the former principal art director at Xbox Entertainment Studios. The game’s zaniness, the Oatmeal’s involvement, and its viral status on social media helped propel it into the stratosphere.

For the mobile release, the Exploding Kittens founders teamed up with Seattle-based digital product studio Substantial to create an iOS app that would not just replicate the original game but evolve and improve it for old and new fans alike. Two to five players can play it as a multiplayer title, but they have to be in the same room. The digital experience has new cards that the paper one doesn’t, and it has sound effects. The app is built in Unity, and it uses art from The Oatmeal.

In the table edition, you put the deck of cards face down. You take turns drawing cards, and if you draw the “exploding kitten” card, you are out — unless that player has a “defuse” card that can neutralize the kittens with laser pointers, kitten therapy, and catnip sandwiches. You can also deploy a tacocat, Abracrab Lincoln, magical meat bikini, and a catterwocky. Action cards do things like remove or mitigate the kittens. You can deploy the thousand-year back hair, peek at cards by rubbing the belly of a pig-a-corn, skip a turn by wearing a portable cheetah butt, or seek out the wisdom of a goat wizard. You have to decide which cards to play, when to play them, and which of your opponents to target. Every card you draw increases your odds of drawing the exploding kitten, making things more tense as a match progresses.

What you’ll like

A catty sense of humor

OK, it’s more than catty. The game has an uproarious sense of humor. I laughed just looking through the cards that I received in the very first hand. The card for skipping a turn says, “take a nap instead,” and it shows a napping cat. The card for seeing into the deck shows an image of a bear with a “compound eye.” You can defuse an exploding kitten card by distracting the cat with a “laser pointer” defuse card. The “draw from the bottom” card shows a picture of a baby and adds, “like the little scared baby that you are.”

This stuff just makes you giggle, and it carries the point of the cards home so that you remember their purpose. When you play these cards against your friends and family members, you’ll howl with laughter.

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It takes real strategy

The strategy for every player is to put off the inevitable. Like in Russian roulette, someone has to draw the exploding kitten. But, you can put that problem off in a variety of ways. You can skip your turn and make your rival (up to four other players) draw a card instead. You can freeze another person’s card with a “diarrhea” card. You can steal a card. When you get stuck with the exploding kitten, you can defuse it maybe once or twice. Then, you can add it back to a part of the deck where you choose, and your opponents won’t know your choice.

All of these cards give you a variety of strategies to pursue. You can screw over a player or make an alliance with another. I can see why the creators chose to focus on in-room multiplayer because the reactions you can get when you screw other people over are so funny. If this happened over the Internet, it wouldn’t be as fun.

I used a card to see through three of the top cards. The exploding kitten wasn’t in those cards, so I knew I could keep drawing new ones, which gave me abilities like a chance to skip a turn or steal a card.

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But, I laughed out loud when I played a card that turned my opponent blind. The “nothing but cat butt” card made my kid’s cards turn around and show nothing but cat butts. So, my kid couldn’t see which cards to play. That made things much easier for me to win.

It’s worth playing repeatedly

In the digital title, the gameplay lasts for maybe five minutes, but the goal is to get people to play it over and over again. You can definitely play for hours at a time. It doesn’t take long to learn the rules, and you’ll figure out a strategy quickly. You can try different moves in different matches, and the outcomes will be different.

Some things are better in digital

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The deck shows exactly what your odds are of drawing an exploding kitten. Each time someone draws a card, the probability recalculates and displays instantly. You can’t do that in the tabletop version. Some cards in the digital version aren’t in the board game. And you can easily extend your deck by downloading in-app content, such as additional cards. In this way, Substantial takes full advantage of the mobile app.

What you won’t like

Annoying technical glitches

On the first night we played, we enjoyed a handful of encounters. Then, it wouldn’t load. I could no longer create or join games, and the same went for my kid. We called it a day. We tried it again the next day, and we had the same problem. We closed the app and reloaded it. Finally, it started working again. I don’t know if this is because the app is so popular. But clearly, it came out before it was fully battle tested. I hope that the team releases a fix soon because it’s kind of maddening to see things work and then fail the rest of the time.

You’ll get tired of it

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This sounds like a contradiction to the notion you can play Exploding Kittens repeatedly. You’ll be quite happy playing it for a few evenings. But after that, the jokes get old. The game isn’t infinitely replayable. The humor wears off after a while, and you start to see the cards more for their functions, rather than the funny art or jokes.

Sure, you could say it’s a cheap game at $1.99, with no fees for microtransactions. But if you have a five-player game, every player who doesn’t share the same iTunes account will have to buy it. Did you really get your money’s worth? If you lose interest after a short time, the answer is no.

Multiplayer could be better

The Exploding Kittens creators said they wanted to make it so you could play in the same room with other players because it elicits many whoops and hollers when it’s played that way. But Bluetooth is a bit of a finicky technology, and I still think they could find a way to add long-distance multiplayer, like it has been done with asynchronous titles like Words with Friends. I really hope that the response is strong enough for the team to add long-distance multiplayer, and I really believe that will expand the audience and replay potential enormously. After all, you don’t want to play only with your local friends or family. You’ll get tired of them and hunger for fresh opponents elsewhere.

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Conclusion

I think everyone will get a lot of laughs out of Exploding Kittens. But it doesn’t have staying power to keep it going as a huge phenomenon. It’s hilarious, but it doesn’t feel like it’s done. I think it’s worth $1.99 already, but not everyone will agree. It has potential to be something that could stick around for ages. But, I worry that it won’t have lasting appeal without more depth. I’ll update my review score if there’s a significant update.

Score: 70/100

Exploding Kittens is out now for iOS.

Here’s a video on the mobile release posted by Inman.