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Exploding Kittens resurrects ‘dead’ players in Zombie Kittens spin-off game

The cat’s out the bag.

A new spin-off game from Exploding Kittens sees players coming back from the dead.

The upcoming board game, called Zombie Kittens, is a standalone title in the Exploding Kittens series that enables players, for the first time, to come back into the game after they’ve exploded. In a standard playthrough of Exploding Kittens, whenever a player is forced to draw an exploding kitten card they are eliminated from the game. However, in Zombie Kittens, players will have the opportunity to rejoin an active game even after they’ve drawn an exploding kitten card.

Set to be the seventh version of Exploding Kittens – which includes a two-player game and a not safe for work edition – Zombie Kittens was created in response to the issue of players having to sit out the rest of a game of Exploding Kittens whenever they explode.

Watch on YouTube
Learn how to play Zombie Kittens.

“One of the biggest pain points of the original Exploding Kittens is exploding because you’re out and have to watch your friends or family play on without you,” said Elan Lee, the co-creator of Exploding Kittens. “Zombie Kittens solves that problem with player resurrection. Our community has been asking for this for a while.”

Besides the new resurrection mechanic and cards, Zombie Kittens also adds new artwork for the party board game by co-designer and Oatmeal artist Matthew Inman – alongside co-designers Elan Lee and Shane Small – focused on undead humans and cats.

Zombie Kittens is set to be published by Exploding Kittens, the studio responsible for the original party board game alongside You’ve Got Crabs, Throw Throw Burrito and A Game of Cat & Mouth, a dexterity title that has players using a cat paw to launch balls over to their opponent’s side of the board.

An image of some cards for Zombie Kittens.

Exploding Kittens is a card game for two to five players that has players taking turns to play and pick up cards. Some cards in the game force other players to discard or pick up cards, increasing the chance that they’ll draw an exploding kitten card and be eliminated. Players can also attempt to pick at cards in the deck to potentially avoid drawing an exploding kitten.

Zombie Kittens is available now from the Exploding Kittens online store for $21 (£17).

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Alex Meehan avatar
Alex Meehan: After writing for Kotaku UK, Waypoint and Official Xbox Magazine, Alex became a member of the Dicebreaker editorial family. Having been producing news, features, previews and opinion pieces for Dicebreaker for the past three years, Alex has had plenty of opportunity to indulge in her love of meaty strategy board games and gothic RPGS. Besides writing, Alex appears in Dicebreaker’s D&D actual play series Storybreakers and haunts the occasional stream on the Dicebreaker YouTube channel.

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