Exploding Kittens Original Edition Card Game
Get ready for a fast paced and hilarious card game where every draw could change everything with Exploding Kittens Original Edition. Designed for kids, teens, and adults, this easy to learn game combines simple rules with strategic decisions, unexpected surprises, and plenty of humor.
Players take turns drawing cards while trying to avoid the dreaded Exploding Kitten. Use action cards to manipulate the deck, skip turns, shuffle the cards, and use special cards to defuse an Exploding Kitten. The tension builds with every draw as players compete to be the last person standing.
Simple to Learn. Fun to Play
Exploding Kittens is designed to be easy to learn, making it a great choice for casual game nights and players who may not regularly play card games.
The basic objective is straightforward. Draw cards, avoid the Exploding Kitten, and use your available cards strategically to stay in the game.
The simple gameplay allows new players to get started quickly while the unpredictable deck and strategic action cards provide plenty of replayability.
Strategic Action Cards
Players can use action cards to influence the game and improve their chances of surviving.
Depending on the cards in your hand, you can skip your turn, shuffle the deck, or use special cards to help defuse an Exploding Kitten.
Knowing when to use your cards can make the difference between staying in the game and getting knocked out.
Avoid the Exploding Kitten
The central challenge is simple but suspenseful. Players draw cards from the deck while trying to avoid drawing an Exploding Kitten.
If you draw one, you need the right card or strategy to stay in the game. As the deck gets smaller, every draw can become increasingly unpredictable.
The result is a game filled with surprises, laughter, and moments of anticipation.
Hilarious Cartoon Artwork
The game includes 56 illustrated cards featuring the distinctive artwork associated with Exploding Kittens.
The deck includes memorable characters and illustrations such as Tacocat, Rainbow Ralphing Cat, and All Seeing Goat Wizard, giving the game its unmistakable humorous personality.
The playful artwork complements the quick moving gameplay and makes the cards entertaining even before they are played.
Great for Family Game Night
Exploding Kittens is designed for 2 to 5 players ages 7 and up, making it suitable for families, friends, kids, teens, and adults.
It is a great choice for:
- Family game nights
- Parties
- Casual gatherings
- Game nights with friends
- Camping trips
- Road trips
- Vacations
- Sleepovers
- Icebreaker activities
The quick learning curve makes it easy to bring out when you want a game that does not require a lengthy explanation before everyone can start playing.
Compact and Portable
The compact card game format makes Exploding Kittens convenient to take almost anywhere.
Pack it for a road trip, camping adventure, vacation, family gathering, or game night. The portable design makes it easy to keep the game ready for spontaneous entertainment wherever you go.
Highly Replayable Gameplay
Although the rules are easy to understand, the unpredictable card draws and changing strategies make each game different.
Players never know exactly what will happen next, creating plenty of opportunities for surprise, laughter, and strategic decisions.
The combination of accessible rules and unpredictable gameplay makes it a game that can be played repeatedly without feeling exactly the same each time.
A Game for Kids, Teens, and Adults
With its simple rules, humorous artwork, and strategic card play, Exploding Kittens can appeal to a wide range of players.
Whether you are an experienced tabletop gamer or simply looking for an entertaining game to play with family and friends, the Original Edition provides an approachable way to get everyone involved.
Features at a Glance
- Exploding Kittens Original Edition
- Card based party game
- Designed for 2 to 5 players
- Recommended for ages 7 and up
- Includes 56 illustrated cards
- Instruction manual included
- Strategic action cards
- Skip turn cards
- Shuffle cards
- Defuse cards
- Exploding Kitten cards
- Humorous cartoon artwork
- Features characters including Tacocat and Rainbow Ralphing Cat
- Easy to learn
- Fast and engaging gameplay
- Highly replayable
- Compact and portable
- Great for family game nights
- Suitable for kids, teens, and adults
- Great for travel, camping, and road trips
Draw a Card. Avoid the Kitten. Stay in the Game.
Whether you are looking for a hilarious family game, a portable card game for travel, or something entertaining to bring out at your next game night, Exploding Kittens Original Edition delivers quick learning, strategic choices, and plenty of unexpected moments. Gather your players, shuffle the deck, and hope the next card you draw is not the one that ends your game.
Lynn C. –
Super Fun Game!
This game is so fun! We played it for the first time today with our two kiddos, ages 8 and 10. It was very easy to learn and each game is very quick. By the second game everyone had a pretty good grasp of it. Our kids loved it, and of course they were quickly attacking each other with their cards once they figured out how! They are already wanting to play again tomorrow. Our family has a ton of games and we love to play them often. I can already tell that this one will be one of our favorites for years to come!
7 people found this helpful
David –
Great Addition !
Fun for the whole family , high quality very easy to learn and just overall a nice way to play with your family
4 people found this helpful
Another MitchellAnother Mitchell –
Idiot-proof instructions and review
This game is FUN. If you are a fan of the artist’s blog, you’ll enjoy it that much more, but knowing previous work is unnecessary. The game is fun, and at first reading sounds very complicated, but it is in fact simple and quick. And a lot of laughs. Don’t be afraid of the cards or illustrations… They are quirky and strange (like the blog 🙂 but not offensive. Okay, the TEENSIEST bit rude, yes. But funny. Wildly creative.This game allows 2-5 people to play. If you may have a larger group, do buy a second set of cards. It is money well invested.The game is like russian roulette. Each person draws a card. At any time you may draw an exploding kitten, and if you do, you die for the remainder of the hand. But, of course, there is more involved than that!!For the first round, keep the directions handy. You’ll need them. For subsequent rounds you will probably not need them much at all.To begin play, everyone is dealt a hand of four cards (look at them but show no one) and one defuse card. The defuse card is your lifeline. Hide it within your hand. (Once you draw an exploding kitten card, you are dead for the hand. UNLESS you can play a defuse card.) You can play any card you have available… Some cards allow you to draw a card from another player’s hand, some allow you to peek at what’s coming in the draw pile, or to skip your turn, or make the next player draw twice… You CAN play anything, but don’t NEED to play anything. Once you are finished playing, or if you’ve decided not to play anything, draw a card (and hope it isn’t an exploding kitten. If it is, play your defuse)If you run out of cards, that’s okay. Draw when it’s your turn. If you accumulate so many cards they are difficult to hold, that’s okay, too. (And better for saving your life!) Keep drawing at your turn. You are not penalized for cards you hold or play. The only goal is to survive drawing the exploding kittens within the deck, or to cause others to draw them. (there is an exploding kitten card in the deck for all but one player. One player survives the hand)Making any sense?? Order the cards, play a hand… It will all be made clear. It is a fast and silly game, very fun. Particularly with people who will enjoy the strange quirky weirdness of the illustrations. Choose your friends well.If you are still on the fence, just do it! What are a few exploded kittens between friends?
73 people found this helpful
ODell Fam Five –
For kids or those who are kids at heart
So I bought this game for thee reasons.1. I like the website The Oatmeal.2. It got great reviews.3. Two of my boys (8 & 11) thought the name was hilarious.So how does it live up?On reason 1, it most certainly lives up. If you like The Oatmeal and the humor and artwork found there you will get a kick out of the game. Though we bought the PG version, so the humor will be on the potty side, but relatively safe. It’s funny and silly.Reason 2, well I can see why it got good reviews, but I could also see why it got some poor ones. The game play is very much dependent on you and those you play with. My boys spent most of the time giggling and hoarding cards. They were reluctant to play anything, which made it annoying at times. You have to play this game like you would play Munchkin, and the main point of Munchkin is to screw over the other players. It seems to me the game is meant to be fast paced and played for fun. Put down card that helps yourself, but stabs your fellow player’s in the back. Otherwise it will be boring and annoying.Reason 3, yes the name is funny, and so are the cards. See the aforementioned giggling.In the game you end your turn by drawing a card, which could be something good and useful, or an Exploding Kitten. An exploding Kitten puts you out of the game so you don’t what that.The game may go something like this, on your turn you play the card, feast upon a unicorn enchilada and gain its enchilada powers (see the future). This allow you to see the next three cards. You notice the second card is an Exploding kitten. So you play, deploy the thousand-year back hair (attack card), ending your turn without drawing a card and forcing player 2 to play two turns. Player 3 plays, feed your opponent a nope sandwich with extra nopesause (nope card, can be played at anytime). Thus negating your attack card. You figure oh well and draw your card ending your turn knowing you are safe, for now. Player 2 plays, don the portable cheetah butt (skip card) and ends their turn without drawing a card. Player 3 plays a pair of, tacocats, which allows them to pick a player and pick a card from their hand. Player 3 then plays, a plague of bat farts descends from the sky (shuffle). So they shuffle the deck until someone says stop, and so on.Like I said, funny and silly, but only if you are kid, a kid at heart, or maybe even drunk.
6 people found this helpful
Dorothy Zentz –
👍
This is one of my favorite games ever! It is so fun to play, perfect for a family or just playing with your friends!
Ramon Hernandez jr. –
great fun game.
Great game instructinos are cleand and cards are of good quality
One person found this helpful
KNA –
Best game ever!
So many laughs playing this game with my boys. This is our go to game. They were 10 and 11 when we started playing, and still love it 3 years later! It’s very clever. This is our favorite version too.
3 people found this helpful
Texasshopper –
4&6 y/o grandkids (and we) love this game
I was dubious as to whether the 4-year-old would like this as he can’t read the cards but he grasped the meaning of the individual cards instantly as there are only about six different kinds of cards. Don’t know if this is a rule, but when someone defuses an exploding kitten, we put the Defuse card on the discard and the EK card back into the draw pile near the bottom. This ensures that there are lots of EK cards near the bottom of the pile, and the game ends quickly enough to hold the interest of young kids. The rules are minimal, simple, easy to grasp quickly, and you don’t have to follow them precisely to make the game work. There are opportunities for uncomplicated strategies, and ways to make sure young kids win every time (when the kids draw from your hand, make the more desirable cards stand out ). Everyone gets exploded in the end except one person (the winner), and we make the exploding dramatic and fun so that there’s not any sadness about “losing.“I am ordering a second set of cards to make sure there’s always one handy.
One person found this helpful
dk*tx –
Fun once you learn the cards
Grandchildren requested. First couple rounds involved a lot of reading each card to learn its value in the game. The more we played the more fun it became.7 and up was an appropriate rating for us.
Natalia –
Es original, divertido y nunca falla en una reunión
perfecto! amo este juego, en general es muy fácil de aprender a jugarlo y sin duda es uno que les gustaría llevarlo a la reuniones con sus amigos o familia, es bastante divertido y si tienen la posibilidad de comprar laexpansiones mucho mejor para que varios puedan jugar en las partidas!La caja llegó en perfectas condiciones y las cartas también. Es un juego original de la marca.