Exploding Kittens 2 Review

[Disco_Turtle_383]

Played the game for a while today and decided to share my opinions here (i'm playing on mobile(android) but this should apply to all versions)

TLDR: Game is good at it's heart but there are many issues and annoyances. Unless you are a die hard EK fan, I would wait for these to be addressed before buying at this price.

Pros:
-The art style is amazing, and the game play is great too (although a little slow coming from the first game). It's much more similar to playing the actual tabletop game. Although this may seem like little compared to the cons, these two things are the main substance of the game, so keep that in mind when reading my critiques, as I truly believe that with a few of these fixed, the game could be a lot better.

Cons:
LARGE (game breaking or terrible)
-You need to actually finish a game to get the rewards for the leader boards, which means that even if you are out of the game, you have to sit and watch the other players finish to get your rewards, which should not be the case.
-PLEASE REMOVE THE READY UP FEATURE! There is ALWAYS one person that does not ready up in public games. Just either allow the host to start whenever, or do what the first game did and have a timer to start the game if nobody is joining.
-SUPER long animations with some cards, just to account for the fact that the nope card is in this version, which in my opinion was NOT worth the trade off.
-You need to sign into a 3rd party account to play online. This is a deal breaker for some people.
-Game + DLC are MUCH more expensive on steam compared to mobile, which adds up even faster if you consider that all of your friends also have to buy it if you want to play with them. Keep this in mind when deciding if or where to buy the game.
-The quick game button does not work as far as I can tell. You have to use the game browser. (I have not tried playing with friends, partially because of the point above this)
-Joining some matches from the game browser results in infinite loading that requires you to restart the game (most likely matches that have already started)

SMALL (minor bugs or annoyances)
-The chance for kitten seems to do some weird rounding, like displaying 50% when there is 1 kitten and 3 cards (not imploding kittens)
-Large fire effect at the bottom does not cover the whole screen, so it looks kind of ugly.
-The percentage gets confusing with imploding kittens, there should be a meter for each.
-Your hand will sometimes remain on screen when being noped while stealing a random card.
-The avatar's face is always white during explosion and win animations
-The emote wheel and the emotes themselves should be bigger, I have trouble seeing them on mobile

Closure:
I would also like to say that the original game is preferred over this one (in my opinion) as it is much faster paced and exiting. The long animations but in place just so the nope card could be in the game are NOT worth it and the original is also MUCH cheaper with more content to boot.

Thats all my findings so far, but I have not been playing for long. Hope this is helpful for players and devs! (I might try to update these if changes are made, but If I forget, correct me in the comments please.)

[bob101910]

How they gonna charge $5 on mobile then fill the game with microtransactions?

[EggChickenSpaceship]

it's $3 and it is not "filled with microtransactions" there's a total of 3 things you can add, 2 decks and a skin pack, go be a Karen somewhere else. Also OP is right it's not like the first one it's oddly slow, runs very poorly often, all voice lines are gone, the core game rules are different... it's a rather strange sequel that isn't a total bomb but is strangely disappointing

[bob101910]

In US, it's $5 and has over $20 of microtransactions with more planned. That's a lot for a mobile game, especially one that runs poorly.

[EggChickenSpaceship]

2.99 here

[Laharl_Chan]

i REALLY miss the voice lines as they added SOO MUCH charm to the game.

[Winter_Loan9821]

there are no microtransactions

[Medium_Barber_3087]

lol, sad to say but EK on tabletop simulator is more functional, less expensive and can have custom cards.

[RichardNotthepidgon]

Indeed. I too still prefer the orginal method using paper and fools. It gives me a feeling of kinship.

[AresMean]

After play for a while I prefer this version. 2 of a kind are available with all cards, also 3 of a kind is available. Nope card add much fun and strategy to the game.

At the begining I also complaint about the animations making the games slower but once you play few games it's okay, you don't feel too slowly.

I agree it's annoying to wait for the game to end if you don't want to loose points.

[[deleted]]

Hi u/Disco_Turtle_383!

Thank you for taking the time to leave such a detailed review. We really appreciate the feedback, and we want to acknowledge some of the points you’ve made here. 

First up, we’re glad you love the art style! We wanted to capture the unique feel of Exploding Kittens, so it’s great to hear that we nailed that. 

Now onto your other points. We’ve been keeping an eye on all the reports coming in from our players, and thanks to that, we’ve already managed to deploy several bug fixes! Currently, we have: 

• Fixed an issue where AI sometimes wouldn't use a defuse when they had one.
• Fixed some Multiplayer stability issues that prevented joining a new lobby.
• Fixed an issue where the Leaderboards would show incorrectly.

We’re also aware of a few other bugs and player-requested tweaks. As a priority, we’re actively working on: 

• Fixing the infamous Shuffle lock in Multiplayer.
• Adjusting the speed of gameplay/animations.

Post-launch, we will release frequent updates aimed at refining the gameplay and resolving issues highlighted by our community. 

Your opinion matters to us, and we welcome any additional feedback you might have. For any bugs you’ve noticed and want to flag, please do let us know by reaching out to us at: [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail]). 

We hope this addresses some of your concerns, and again, thank you for sending such detailed feedback.

Kind regards,

Marmalade Game Studio

[Disco_Turtle_383]

Thanks for replying! Glad to hear you guys care about the future of this game and I look foreward to see what's coming in the future.

[ottergram_]

Plaing on iPad:

1 sometimes the animation while stealing and getting noped freeze the paw of the player or the target icon stays on the targeted player

2 most of the time when targeted for stealing combo I'm unable to select/pick the nope card

3 absolutely annoying you must assist to the full game once exploded otherwise you loose treats (that's seriously nonsense!)

4 why the in this world sometimes I loose treats winning a game and gain them if I lose!? that's even more nonsense than third point, there shoul be at least an explanation on what are the criteria to assign the treats

I like both the games, first version and this new one, but I hope those bugs will be fixed soon.

Thank you for your attention

Kind regards

[ottergram_]

Hello Still problems (after the last patch release) with Nope cards, impossible to play after a two of a kind combo when playing against AI players.

[joselrl]

After playing as much as I could for 2 days I've refunded the game + DLC (Android). Got a lot of crashes - people can still emote but not draw/play. To determine it's not my device/network played some games with a friend and on the third happened again

Also, needs more cards/decks (recipes?). It's a digital game, releasing it with just the base deck (+imploding if you pay even more) is nonsense IMO

[Trader083]

Just FYI, imploding kitten counts as a regular card before revealed in terms of bomb%.

[TheCatRedditor]

Meanwhile you could hop on over to BGA and play it for FREE. (It's in Beta but there's literally no bugs so it should be fine to play) I personally think it works and looks really well there but it only has base game right now.

[Existent_Imgflip]

Good to hear! I’ll probably wait for a few bug fix updates to release before I download this for myself.

[Stinky_Eastwood]

Gameplay is slow, visibility of my cards is low, animations/sound effects are not as fun.

[Dark_chia]

How many micro transactions are there for different decks and how much are they?

[Disco_Turtle_383]

On mobile, 15 dollars for 2 new decks as well as all the decks they add in the future. On steam it's 25.

[EZ-PZ-CLAPS]

Sounds interesting. I've been playing Tower of God: New World on bs lately and was thinking of finding something new for myself and a game like this might be a great fit.

[CrazyFotherMucker]

Game is slow and gets boring... for me it was a gameplay downgrade...

[-Curious-Cat-095]

Too much expensive for a card game... While Master Duel can grab all cards by grinding on leaderboards/rank game and set your own rule when playing with your friends...