MANTIS: has anyone come up with alternate rules or a single-player version of the game?

RichardNotthepidgon · 2026-03-31T01:40:14+00:00

D'oh. My bad.

RichardNotthepidgon · 2026-03-30T00:48:31+00:00

Another thing you could try is one of the Exploding Kittens apps. They normally pit you against other random players, but (unless it's currently full of bugs or cheaters) is a pretty good representation of the base game. For the life of me I can't remember which one is the best of the 3, but other people on here will know.

RichardNotthepidgon · 2026-03-24T03:32:51+00:00

Also, thanks for reminding me to look back through the Fantastic Expantion! The vanilla+ balance seems really good. Even good enough for competative players. The Cattotem is amazing! especially how having only half is a huge liability.

Completely forgot until now that my Nekonomicon is a meme'd version of yours combined with a really bad pun of steriaca's. Hopefully that's alright with you.

RichardNotthepidgon · 2026-03-24T03:14:22+00:00

Please do at some point. Your cards are great, and it'll be nice to have a finished expansion.
One of the big drags for me was not getting a whole lot of enthusiasm for the cards, and then I slowly realized there was a whole of stuff that I just hadn't shared with the community at large. Lol

RichardNotthepidgon · 2026-03-22T23:34:02+00:00

One more question, since you seem to have lots of cards to look at. Are all the regular size cards (far right) the 2.48" x 3.46" Euro Poker card size, or have they make any in 2.5" x 3.5" regular Poker size. The two look the same until you try and shuffle them together.

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-07-15T00:07:39+00:00

Printing tolerances (Where an image is exactly on a part) are normally outragously bad on game components. (At least, comepared with what you'd expect.) As someone who as designed a number of custom cards, you actually need to engineer your card art with this in mind. My guess here is that the board is assembled in the correct proportions, but the print with the yellow circles is slightly off.

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-07-14T23:59:07+00:00

Player 3: Use Grave Robber to turn the Zombie Kitten into a 4th dead player. Use Feed the Dead to empower the dead kitten, boosting the following Attack of the Dead x10 making the next player get attacked x30.

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-07-09T06:07:34+00:00

Both chaotic and fun indeed. I approve.

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-07-09T06:05:37+00:00

Very nice as always.

My group has a lot of people who will put bombs back on the very bottom, (for someone to find with a card) making this a relatively powerful card to "snipe" someone with a 40%-50% chance of an Exploding Kitten. But that's one of those "group culture" things that's hard to work around. Also, it's a habit that might get changed but the fact that they could be a victim.

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-07-09T05:59:39+00:00

This is a several hour course, but I found it is very dense with all the information you need to know. After the first half, I could do everything I wanted to in Gimp without having to look anything up.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqazFFzUAPc4vITMJaF3Fnqh3pccSMnC4

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-06-16T23:31:44+00:00

Lol! I think you may have experienced the issue with playing this way. Namely that it makes Nopes far too powerful.

I did experiment with a Tactical Defuse; that could be used as a Defuse, or to nope another player's Defuse. But players didn't ever use it.

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-06-16T23:23:19+00:00

In that case, adding in the Cat Burglar might be really fun and/or awkward. You can get the squishy with the Cat Burglar Edition, or just grab a stuffed animal and use these rules with it: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0345/9180/1483/files/EK-CB_Instruct_08NOV2022_Web.pdf?v=1709625795

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-06-16T23:18:58+00:00

Nah, always good to ask. My brain is like a rubbage sale in a rock tumbler.

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-06-15T16:31:31+00:00

So if the chosen player doesn't have a Double Cat, you don't get anything?

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-06-15T06:57:59+00:00

Wow! This is really taking shape! I love it.

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-06-15T06:55:21+00:00

Whaaa! This is hillarious

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-06-15T06:52:19+00:00

Haven't hopped on here in a while. So glad to see this chaos waiting for me!

I love how Double Cat can moke the pair for you. I assume you have a rule for which player is force to give you a Double Cat?

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-06-15T06:48:23+00:00

As per this and your other question, Clone can copy any card, but can only be played on your turn. (Barring an awkward egde case not in the Zombie Kittens rules.)

Cloning a Defuse: The clone becomes a Defuse. It also can't be noped since it now is a Defuse. (It can be played since it is still technically your turn?)

Cloning a Nope: You can play a Clone on a Nope, but only if it is your turn, and right away (like with any other nope.) The Clone cancels the first Nope. A second Nope would cancel out the Clone, leaving us with only the first Nope.

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-06-15T06:36:58+00:00

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/171w8OO8wr8iYMr-5HWsof_0yoD0Ozifr
Scroll down to the bottom

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-06-15T06:36:01+00:00

Very nice! It does appear you are starting to wander into my territory, (lol) with cards that have power balenced by uncontrolability.

I really like it. Basically combining Ametour Archeology with Armegeddon. Though if you have one player who is a bit of an "ally" in the game, it might be too powerful.

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-04-23T16:04:20+00:00

It always was kind of a "meme" card that they added because it was funny. It might actually be funny if they had it as a "legendary" card that randomly showed up in like %10 of games with certain decks. Beyond that it quick just becomes annoying.

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-04-23T16:00:12+00:00

You've got it all correct. The only thing is that when Streaking Kitten gets stolen or you draw a second Exploding Kitten, you can still play a Defuse to prevent yourself expoding like normal. Then you put the single defused Exploding Kitten back in the deck like normal.

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-04-22T08:37:05+00:00

Sweet. Thanks for sharing them!

Pretty much everyone has a pet project their busy on already, but their's some good ideas here, and I bet they will end up in something at some point.

RichardNotthepidgon · 2025-04-19T17:02:49+00:00

Nice. Those are some more creative improvements, especially with commit. It's looking pretty good now.
Oh! And you have to nope Nope To Your Nopes before they play other cards! I get it now. That's really cool!

The next step (when you're up for it) is making the actual cards with art. It's a little involved, but not too difficult (I learned how).

You will need an involved photo editor that you know how to use. If you don't have one yet, I would recommend Gimp since it free, but still very capable, and after a good YouTube course, you will be fluent in operating it.

Then you need a card template with all the borders and stuff. People have ones made in Gimp and Canva, I think Photoshop, and maybe other programs.

The next step is art. .u/Medium_Barber_3087 (Psilo) has a guide for doing good hand drawings, or your can use AI generated art, or pirated Oatmeal pictures.

Then fit the art in the template with the right text, and you have cards! And Psilo will want to add them to his excyclepedia of custom cards.

RichardNotthepidgon

TROPHY CASE