Awww, isn't that kitten cu-*KABOOOOOM*

Hey, hey, everybody! It's my sincere hope that today finds you happy and healthy! I'm writing this post in the middle of a bit of a work hiatus, due to celebrating my five year wedding anniversary with my wife this weekend. Huzzah! Go us, and all that stuff. Well, technically our anniversary is next weekend, but this is the weekend she was given time off, sooooo, yeah, here we are. Anyways, I decided not to do any game recording during these five days to relax and enjoy some time away, but I still thought I'd bring you a real quick hitter about a new card game Mrs. Nerdstalgic and I are excited about; Exploding Kittens.

Exploding Kittens is at it's core a card drawing game for between two to five players. More players can be brought into the fun by adding together another Exploding Kittens deck. (either the core deck or the NSFW edition) This allows for up to nine players to take part in the shenanigans, which is good, because the game seems to be really set up for group play. Fear not though, if you only have two people to play it's still entertaining. I just think that quite a bit of the fun of this game will be had in much the same way that Munchkin creates fun, through chaos. My wife and I played a two person game that was decently fun, but lacked the back biting and under the table deals that often accompany games like this.

The main objective of Exploding Kittens is to not meet your demise at the hands of a cute and cuddly kitten. Each game you will add a number of "exploding kitten" cards equal to the number of players minus one, thus insuring that at the end of the game only one player will be left standing. Your efforts at dodging the feline fireworks are aided by some of the other card types in the game such as "defuse" cards that allow you to shuffle the exploding kitten card you drew back into the deck anywhere, "nope" cards that allow you to effectively cancel the plays of the other players (though, notably, NOT exploding kitten or defuse cards), or just by matching two of the "normal" cards so that you can steal a card at random from someone else's hand. Unlike many other card games, which encourage you to maintain a lean hand to play from, Exploding Kittens seems to skew more towards the card hoarding end of the spectrum. You have no maximum hand limit and having more cards available to you gives you more power and also provides an effective smokescreen from people trying to steal your good cards. Ultimately, the mechanics of the game function well and it's fun, but don't expect it to bring
anything revolutionary to your gaming nights.

However, what the mechanics lack in innovation is more than made up for in the chuckles that will surely occur from both the art on the cards themselves and the flavor text. Particularly, the NSFW deck is full of cards that are in turns gross and hilarious. For fans of Exploding Kittens' creator, The Oatmeal, the art will feel comfortable. It's not masterpiece artwork by any means, but it's certainly effective for this medium and the crude art style befits the humor. So, how do you come by a copy? Well, that's the tricky part. You see, everyone who is getting the game now is someone who backed the kickstarter earlier this year. If you go to the Exploding Kittens website, you will be greeted with a button to "pre-order" a copy, which redirects to a page where you can enter your email to be alerted when it becomes available. So, when will it hit actual distribution? *shrugs*

If you missed backing it, just ask some of your, uh, "weirder" friends. Yeah, those friends... I'm sure they probably have a copy. (like me!)  Anyways, that's all for today folks! I'll scribble something else for you on Friday! #GameOn