Exploding Kittens studio’s new titles reskin popular party games Love Letter, Top Ten and Happy Salmon
Brand new title Danger Danger dares players to draw cards on a hidden timer.
Three new games - and one holiday reskin - are on the way from the tabletop publisher that brought you Exploding Kittens and Throw Throw Burrito.
Exploding Kittens (the studio, not the card game) announced a trio of party titles that will land in local game stores and wider retail on February 18th. One of them is an adaptation of 2022 Spiel Des Jahres nominee Top Ten, originally published by Cocktail Games.
Those rights now belong to the studio started by comic artist Matthew Inman - better known online as The Oatmeal - and it has rebranded the light board game as That Escalated Quickly. You can judge which moniker is better, as the core design remains untouched - one player reads a scenario question off a card and the rest must answer depending on a secretly assigned number between 1 and 10. Lower numbers are comparatively “less effective” and it’s up to the question asker to correctly rank the responses so that everyone wins
In true Exploding Kitten fashion, expect the prompts to drink deeply from the absurd and goofy. The box art shows a bear in a birthday hat holding a selfie stick and a chainsaw, so use that to measure your tolerance for shenanigans.
Another announced party game includes Power Hungry Pets, a refitting of Z-Man Games’ Love Letter that trades forbidden courtly love for backstabbing animals hellbent on domination. If you’ve played the original, you know what’s going on here for the most part - the one wrinkle is that the winning player wants to hold the highest value card in the end.
Those looking for something fresh should check out Danger Danger, the one truly new design amongst Exploding Kittens’ offering. Taking place over a single, scant minute, Danger Danger tasks players to draw and play cards as fast as possible in order to earn the value on the cards. If that sounds too simple, all teams will need to stop playing before the hidden timer goes off or else they automatically lose. How well is your timekeeping under pressure? Danger Danger will find out in very short order.
The last release is an Easter-themed version of Happy Salmon, er…excuse me - Hoppy Salmon. All of the actions in this frenetic free-for-all have been rejiggered around eggs, bunnies and other springtime movements, and Exploding Kittens says the quality of the cards will be better than any previous version. Love to high-five but hate the floppy nature of fish? This partner-finding party favourite will be a smash after the annual egg-hunt.
That Escalated Quickly will hit Target retail locations and Exploding Kittens’ webstore today, January 8th, while the rest of the games are currently slated for a February 18th release.