is a card game created by Matthew Inman (from The Oatmeal), Elan Lee, and Shane Small. Originating as a Kickstarter project and exceeding its goal in eight minutes, it went on to become the most backed project in Kickstarter history.When beginning the game, players start with at an identical number of cards, including one Defuse card for each. All Exploding Kittens and remaining cards are then shuffled into a face-down deck. Players then take turns drawing cards from the deck until somebody draws an Exploding Kitten. Should this happen, they "explode" and lose the game (unless they can use a Defuse card). This continues until only one player remains, and is declared the winner.
There are numerous different cards that lessen players' chances of exploding. On a player's turn, they can play as many of the cards they have in their hand as they want (or none at all!), and then draw a card from the draw pile to end their turn. There are a variety of cards in the core deck, as well as many more in multiple expansion packs and additional full decks.
In April, 2022, Netflix announced that a video game and an adult animated series based on the game were in development. The early plot details indicate that the series will follow a war between the forces of Heaven and Hell. No, really. Tom Ellis and Lucy Liu lead the voice cast.
Exploding Kittens provides examples of (under construction):
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Cards with an identical basic function have a matching icon with its own distinct color.
- Counterspell: Nope cards can cancel the effects of any card besides a Defuse card or any Kitten.
- Death or Glory Attack: In the "Good vs Evil" version, a player who plays Armageddon places God Cat and Devil Cat face down in front of themselves and another player, who has to decide whether to keep/swap their card before both players take the card in front of them. God Cat acts as a Wild Card and Devil Cat explodes the player, meaning that the Armageddon player either gets a huge benefit and potentially one less opponent, or gets blown up/loses a defuse.
- Expansion Pack: Five exist for the game: Imploding Kittens, Streaking Kittens, Barking Kittens, Zombie Kittens and Good vs Evil.
- Extra Turn: Can be exploited as a harmful (if well-timed) Attack. An attacked player can stack their remaining turns onto those of another player with this. (A player can also use a Personal Attack card on themself to play this trope straight.) Also inverted with the ability to Skip a turn, ending it without drawing a card; and a Super Skip card, which skips all remaining turns.
- Extrinsic Go-First Rule: Humorously, players can determine who goes first with whatever they want.
- Kingmaker Scenario: Even if a player's chances of victory are diminished, they could still be capable of turning the tides of play for the others.
- Literal Wild Card:
- The Feral Cat cards from Imploding Kittens may be used with a Cat card. Cat cards normally can only be played with a matching counterpart in order to steal one card from another player; a Feral Cat can fill this gap in and allow any lone Cat card to be played immediately.
- The Godcat card from Good vs Evil, if won from the Armageddon event, can be used as almost any other card in the game at will.note
- Official Game Variant: The RFD deck, encouraging players to choose the cards they want, comes with ten different official layouts or "recipes".
- Out-of-Turn Interaction: Alter-the-Future NOW and Nope cards can be played outside the user's turn.
- Single-Use Shield: The Defuse card can prevent an Exploding Kitten from exploding, but is discarded once it does so. A defused Exploding Kitten is then placed anywhere in the deck in secret.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: It is possible for players to use their cards and/or proper defused Kitten placement to immensely screw over another player of their choice. How strategically viable this is varies.
- Action Bomb: Why Exploding Kittens present a danger to players.
- Autocannibalism: The Zombie Cat in the NSFW and RFD decks eats its own eyeball.
- Cats Love Laser Pointers: One of the Defuse cards, which prevent you from losing the game because you drew an exploding kitten cards, is called "Via Laser Pointer" and flavorwise protects you by distracting the killer kitten to a different location from you.
- Cone of Shame: First released in the Imploding Kittens Expansion Pack alongside things like physical Reverse cards, this acts as a punishment for those who forget whose turn it currently is.
- Every Car Is a Pinto: Heavily implied with a certain Exploding Kitten card that is exclusive to the Streaking Kittens pack and replaced in the RFD deck.
- Mad Bomber: Exploding Kittens seem obsessed with blowing up anyone unfortunate enough to draw Exploding Kitten cards.
- Pun: The Feral Cat functions as a wild card that can be used as any other cat card.
