Exploding Kittens® 2 ٩+

I know I gave 4 stars, don’t get me wrong, this game is amazing, a huge stepup from exploding kittens the first. First of all, I love the 3d, especially when grabbing a card, the attention to detail is immaculate and i’m goad my money was spent wisely! the reason why this is missing a star is because, i felt with the add ons, for around 5 to 7 bucks, i miss how the card decks had its own charm to it, like actions were different, i felt if implented in game, and a little action that follows after using a dlc related card, it would be really cool and a tad bit more worth its price! so more people would probably want to buy the dlc too, besides that, the skins, the theme, i love it!

I was so excited when I saw there was a new Exploding Kittens game available - I happily paid $5 and downloaded the game. Unfortunately, so far it’s only made me want to play the older version. The new animations are neat, but kind of sluggish even on my iPhone 15 Pro Max. The addition of Nope cards is fun, but the animation lag sometimes prevents you from actually using them. Also, if a player goes idle during a game, they get asked to answer if they are still there, but aren’t forced to make a move. This sometimes allows people to sit there not playing a move in hopes that others will give up and leave the game. Not fun.
And the final thing that I find kind of annoying is the focus on additional micro transactions. I just bought the game for $5, it’s not really cool to ask me to pay $18 more to get an expansion now and two more sometime in the distant future. It’s weird that the expansions each cost more than the entire game itself, especially considering they only add a few additional cards. I’m not terribly impressed.

I love the original exploding kittens app and was super eager to buy its sequel! I was fond of all the emotes, characters, graphics, of the the OG game. The pace of the gameplay for the OG version was also workable for a quick game, a few with friends, or an hour or so if I got carried away.

The new game loses the charm of the Exploding Kittens physical game and the app. The graphics and animation are more advanced, but they emphasize the grotesque aspects of the game which makes it hard to look at. The gameplay is faster, yet each action is punctuated by extra animation which makes an individual turn take longer. The characters don't look fun, and the classic emotes are all missing (no more spamming "lololol" or using the emotes as a social tactic) in lieu of five graphic emotes. In addition, you have to make an account through a third-party platform (Bubble) in order to play with strangers of friends.

Overall, version 2 is a letdown. It does, however, include a way to view game queues. This means you're not waiting an unknown amount of time to play with the next available group or individual as with the previous app.

Again, I really wanted to love this app because of my thorough enjoyment of the first app, but it only makes one improvement and loses the features of the original game that made favorable gameplay with charming graphics.