You'll have a deck of cards containing some Exploding Kittens. You play the game by putting the deck face down and taking turns drawing cards until someone draws an Exploding Kitten.
When that happens, that person explodes. They are now dead and out of the game. This process continues until there's only one player left, who wins the game.
1. Remove all the Exploding Kittens (4) and Defuse cards (6) from the deck.
2. Shuffle the remaining deck and deal 4 cards face down to each player.
3. Deal 1 Defuse card to each player so that everyone has a hand of 5 cards total. Keep your hand secret
These are the only cards that can save you from Exploding Kittens. If you play a Defuse card after drawing an Exploding Kitten, instead of getting exploded, you get to reinsert the Kitten back into the Draw Pile anywhere you’d like. Try to get as many Defuse cards as possible.
4. Insert enough Exploding Kittens back into the deck so that there is one fewer than the number of people playing. This ensures that everyone eventually explodes except for one person. Remove any extra Exploding Kittens from the game.
5. Insert the extra Defuse cards back in the deck.
Put only 2 of the extra Defuse cards back in the deck. Remove the other 2 from the game.
6. Shuffle the deck, and put it face down in the middle of the table. The shuffled deck is now your draw pile.
7. Pick a player to go first, (some sample criteria: whoever has the biggest beard, most intimidating odor, shortest spleen, etc.) and you're ready to play!
1. Play a card from your hand by placing it FACE UP on top of the Discard Pile, and following the instructions on the card. Or play no cards at all; that's cool too.
Some cards don't have any instructions on them. These cards must be collected and played as pairs. If you play matching pairs with no instructions on them, pick another player and steal a random card from their hand.
2. After you follow the instructions on a card or play a Pair, you can play more cards. You can play as many cards as you'd like.
3. Finally, end your turn by drawing a card from the Draw Pile into your hand and hoping it's not an Exploding Kitten. (This is different from most other games in that you END YOUR TURN by drawing a card.) Play continues clockwise around the table.
1. You decide to play a See the Future card.
2. While viewing the 3 top cards, you see that the card you're about to draw is an Exploding Kitten.
3. You decide to play an Attack card to end your turn and force the next player to take 2 turns.
4. But then another player plays a NOPE CARD which cancels your attack, so it's still your turn.
5. You don't want to draw that top card and die, so you play a Shuffle card and randomly shuffle the Draw Pile.
6. With the deck freshly shuffled, you draw the top card to end your turn and hope it's not an Exploding Kitten.
Instead of playing any of the cards in your hand, you could just draw a card to end your turn.
If you drew an Exploding Kitten, you can play this card instead of dying.
1. Place your Defuse card in the Discard Pile.
2. Then take the Exploding Kitten, and without reordering or viewing the other cards, secretly put it back in the Draw Pile anywhere you'd like.
Want to screw over the player right after you? Put the Kitten right on top of the deck. If you'd like, hold the deck under the table so that no one else can see where you put it. Your turn is over after playing this card.
Stop any action except for an Exploding Kitten or a Defuse card. Imagine that any card (or Pair or Special Combo) beneath a Nope card no longer exists. You can also play a Nope on another Nope to create a double negative Yup, and so on. You can play a Nope card at any time before an action has begun, even if it's not your turn.
You must show this card immediately. Unless you have a Defuse card, you're dead. Discard all of your cards, including the Exploding Kitten.
End your turn(s) without drawing and force the next player to take 2 turns in a row. The victim of this card takes a turn as normal. Then, when their first turn is over, it's their turn again. (If the victim of an Attack card plays an Attack card, their turns are immediately over, and the next player must take 2 turns.)
Immediately end your turn without drawing a card. If you play a Skip card as a defense against an Attack card, it only ends one of the two turns. Two Skip cards would end both turns.
Force any other player to give you 1 card from their hand. They choose which card to give you.
Shuffle the Draw Pile without viewing the cards until told to stop. (Useful when you know there's an Exploding Kitten coming.
Peek at the top 3 cards from the Draw Pile and put them back in the same order. Don't show the cards to the other players.
Combos are any group of cards played at the same time. When you play combos, ignore the instructions on the cards and do the following instead:
Playing Pairs (where you get to steal a random card from another player) no longer only applies to cards with no instructions on them, it now applies to ANY cards in the deck with the same icon in their corners.
If you play any 5 cards that have different icons in the corners (with instructions, without instructions, or any combination), go through the Discard Pile to take any single card you'd like. (Grab the Pile quickly to choose your card so that you don't get "Noped!")
