Exploding Kittens rules: how to play and survive
* Difficulty is our editorial read on how hard the game is to pick up — not an official rating. Player counts and deck sizes come from the game's rulebook.
Exploding Kittens is a card game for 2 to 5 players. On your turn, you can play any number of action cards before drawing one card from the draw pile to end your turn. Drawing an Exploding Kitten with no way to defuse it eliminates you on the spot. The last player left standing, without being exploded, wins.
Setup
Before dealing, pull the Exploding Kitten cards and the Defuse cards out of the rest of the deck. Shuffle what's left and deal each player a hand from it, commonly around 7 cards, then hand every player exactly 1 guaranteed Defuse card on top of that dealt hand, bringing a starting hand to roughly 8 cards total.
Once hands are dealt, put the Exploding Kittens back into the remaining deck along with any Defuse cards nobody was dealt, and shuffle before setting it down as the draw pile. The number of Exploding Kittens actually in play is always one fewer than the number of players. In a 2- or 3-player game, only 2 Defuse cards go back into the deck and the rest are set aside out of the game entirely; in a 4- or 5-player game, every leftover Defuse card gets shuffled back in.
Gameplay
On your turn, you may play as many action cards from your hand as you want, in any order, before ending your turn by drawing one card from the draw pile. Playing action cards is always optional. Plenty of turns just end with a single draw and nothing else.
| Card type | Effect |
|---|---|
| Skip | Ends your turn immediately without drawing a card at all |
| Attack | Ends your turn without drawing, and forces the next player to take two full turns in a row instead of their usual one |
| Favor | Forces any other player of your choice to hand you one card from their hand |
| Shuffle | Shuffles the entire draw pile without revealing anything, useful for scrambling a known card order |
| See the future | Lets you privately look at the top 3 cards of the draw pile without changing their order |
| Nope | Cancels the very last card played by another player, though it can't stop an Exploding Kitten or a Defuse card from doing its job |
A separate set of cards in the deck has no standalone effect on its own. Collecting a matching pair of them lets you steal a random card from another player's hand. Collecting three matching copies lets you name a specific card and demand it from a player if they're holding it. Collecting five cards that are all different from one another lets you dig through the discard pile and take any single card you want out of it.
If you draw an Exploding Kitten and have a Defuse card in hand, you can play the Defuse instead of being eliminated, then secretly slide the Exploding Kitten back into the draw pile wherever you choose, keeping the rest of the table guessing exactly where it landed. Without a Defuse to play, drawing an Exploding Kitten removes you from the game right there, no exceptions.
Scoring
There's no point total to track. The entire game comes down to survival: the last player who hasn't drawn an unanswered Exploding Kitten wins outright, and nothing else about the match gets tallied or compared.
Variations and house rules
Groups with very young players sometimes simplify the game so that the first Exploding Kitten drawn just ends the game immediately for everyone, skipping the Defuse mechanic and the elimination structure entirely. It trades away most of the tension the base game is built around, but it keeps a round short and low-stakes for kids who aren't ready for the elimination format.
Several official expansion packs add new card types and mechanics on top of the base game described here. Those aren't covered on this page, since they vary by expansion and aren't part of the core rules a new player needs first. If you want another modern party card game with a very different mood, Apples to Apples trades the elimination tension here for a judged, punchline-picking format instead.
FAQ
What happens if you draw an Exploding Kitten with no Defuse card?
You're eliminated from the game immediately. There's no way to avoid it once you've drawn the card and have nothing in hand to counter it, and play simply continues with the remaining players.
How many cards do you start with?
A starting hand is commonly around 7 cards dealt from the non-Exploding-Kitten, non-Defuse portion of the deck, plus 1 guaranteed Defuse card handed to every player on top of that, for roughly 8 cards total to open the game with.
Can you play more than one action card in a turn?
Yes. You can play any number of action cards in whatever order you like before drawing to end your turn. There's no cap on how many you can chain together in a single turn, as long as you actually hold them.
What does the Defuse card actually do?
It's the only card that stops an Exploding Kitten from eliminating you. Play it the moment you draw an Exploding Kitten, and instead of being knocked out, you secretly place the Exploding Kitten back into the draw pile at any position you choose.
How do you win Exploding Kittens?
Be the last player still in the game. Everyone else has to have drawn an Exploding Kitten with no Defuse card left to answer it. There's no separate scoring system beyond simply outlasting the rest of the table.