Exploding Kittens is a card game that was pretty popular and I would argue still is popular enough that it has made it’s way from the physical realm into the Meta realm. Because of this, there isn’t much in the way of a story here at all given this is a card game.
I didn’t think that Exploding Kittens VR would be a very good. I mean how good could a card game be when going from a multiplayer physical game played with friends and made into a VR game played with a headset and controllers.
Well to my surprise, the game plays extremely well and is very interactive. You have a hub area that you can hang around in to view some stats as well as play the tutorial. There are things planned as some doors will indicate that they are coming soon. Along with the tutorial and stats, you also have a wall of avatars that you can purchase with tickets that you earn. Heading into the lobby, you’re presented with a random selection of other players.
The room features a bar with food and drinks you can interact with, a basketball hoop you can shoot hoops at, a roulette wheel, some arcade games that are playable, and game tables.
There are two forms of currency in the game, tickets and coins. Coins are earned by playing people and winning games of Exploding Kittens at the game tables. You then can spend the coins at the two arcade games offered at the roulette wheel. There are two arcade games you can play, one being a game of whack a mole, and the other being a take on breakout. Of the two games, whack a mole is the easiest to play and you can earn quite a bit of tickets. The roulette wheel is a gamble, in that the random amount of tickets you earn is based on chance.
Earning the tickets gives you the ability to purchase avatars and avatar items to customize your in game avatar. You can also earn coins by doing various tasks in the lobby area. This could be winning a game, or taking out a specific number of opponents in a single game.
Speaking of the game tables, Exploding Kittens VR offers three different ways to play the game. These are Blitz, Classic, and Duel, each mode is given two tables each.
Blitz has you going up against up to five other players with the option of filling in those that don’t play with AI opponents. The game is fast paced and only gives you a few seconds to make your move before moving onto the next player. Classic is played the same as Blitz with the exception of giving you a lot more time to make your move and gives you access to up to six items that can be either defensive or offensive items. These add a bit of strategy to the game and can make the game drag out a bit and is a drastic shift from Blitz. Duel blends both Classic and Blitz, offering you very little time to make your move and given a few items to assist you in beating your opponent. I would say that Duel is the fastest way to play the game given you get so little time and only have to play against a single opponent. The major difference with this mode aside from the single opponent, you can’t play against AI, it has to be another player.
Exploding Kittens places a box in front of you. This box is holding a number of capsules with one of them being an exploding kitten that is shuffled among the other capsules. When you hit the button on the box, you get a capsule. This capsule can hold an item you can use, an event that happens to you, a passive item, or the exploding kitten. The closest game that this reminds me of is the game of Old Maid. Similar to that game, you don’t want to be the one left with the ticking time bomb that is the exploding kitten.
Graphically speaking, Exploding Kittens has a cartoonish look to it that fits the game well. The cartoon look to the game really helps to make the game fun and inviting. The large environments with the number of interactive elements, make the game feel fun and inviting. Given how large the lobby area is and how many players the game has to accommodate, I don’t think it would have done well with a more realistic tone.; which leads me into the performance aspect.
Exploding Kittens VR performs really well, as well as it can anyway. I say this because this is an online only game and is being played on a headset that uses WiFi as it’s only primary means of an Internet connection. Now this is strictly speaking of the Meta Quest version I’ve played, I can’t say the same for other platforms. With that said, I think that if the graphics were more realistic and had to accommodate the sheer number of players this game supports, the game would have taken a serious hit in the performance department. I truly believe that the graphical direction that was taken was strictly due to these factors.
Sound is an aspect of Exploding Kittens that I wish was more prominent. Sound in the game feels more like filler, or background noise if you will. The reason I say this is for the simple fact that you have nearly every other player in the lobby talking, yelling, or otherwise making a ton of noise.
This will result in the little sound effects and the ambient music to get lost in the shuffle that is every player making their voices heard. It would be nice if you could just enter a lobby with nobody in it and just play against AI or just enjoy the space in solitude. You could even have just had a private lobby so that you could invite only those you wanted to play with in, if you so chose. That’s really all I can tell you with regards to the sound aspect as you can’t really hear the sounds and music the game offers because of the amount of other noise that fills the space.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed my time with Exploding Kittens VR. It’s the first time I ever dove into the card game, and I totally had a blast playing it! Given that there is a room that is under construction in the hub area, my only hope is that this is in fact a private mode coming to the game. That would really be the cherry on top of this great game.
Those that are religious players of Exploding Kittens, lovers of card games, or never played a card game in your life, you owe it to yourself to pick up this amazing VR game. The positives of this game totally outweigh the negatives and this game is a must play for those that dabble in the world of VR!
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.