Exploding Minions Review

Reviewed by Melody Floyde

As a family we love playing games and are always on the lookout for new ones to try, so I was very happy to be given the opportunity to review the Exploding Minions Card Game which is a new game from Exploding Kittens. We are new to the Exploding Kittens games so weren’t sure what to expect, other than the tantalising promise of the game being “for people who are into bananas and explosions and flaming unicorns… and sometimes fire hydrants” which sounded right up my boys’ street!

Once the game had been dispatched we were kept well informed of when it would be delivered and were given an hour timeslot which was really helpful. We were impressed that the driver had an electric van and also that the outer plastic packaging had good green credentials, which is so important these days. However, this was slightly counteracted by the amount of plastic wrapping around the Exploding Minions Box itself and then more unnecessary plastic wrapping around the cards themselves!

The Exploding Minions game comes in a lovely sturdy colourful box, and has an awesome lenticular design on the front showing a Minion exploding when you move the box, the boys loved this.  Upon opening the box, we were slightly underwhelmed by the fact it only contained a pack of cards and some instructions – which didn’t seem to warrant such a large box (even if it is a very impressive box!).

The Exploding Minions Game is designed for age 7+ years (my sons are aged 6 and 10) and is for 2-5 players and should take round 15 minutes to play.  Being completely new to the Exploding Kittens game format, I was relieved that there was a really detailed and colourful instruction leaflet inside the box showing us exactly how to play the game and on the other side a guide to show what all the different cards were for and how they could be played.  The leaflet also suggested that we shouldn’t read the rules, but instead should watch the instructional video online which we did. The video was really good and the boys were confident they knew how to play once they had watched it.  (I’m still old school and prefer reading instructions, so was glad that both bases were covered!). Essentially the aim of the game is to avoid being exploded for as long as possible and the winner is the last person remaining once the others have reached an unfortunate demise.

The box contains 72 cards in total, and different numbers of cards are needed depending on the number of players which was very clearly detailed.  As we were playing with four players we used all of the cards.  To start with each player is given a defuse card (which is very helpful as it means you have one chance not to explode if you turn over the all-important Exploding Minion Card), the pack is then shuffled and players are dealt a further seven cards.  After this, the Exploding Minion Cards are shuffled back into the deck and the game begins with players using their various cards to perform actions and hopefully avoid turning over the dreaded Exploding Minion card.

We really enjoyed playing the game, and since receiving it we have played LOTS of times already. The cards are all lovely and colourful. They are illustrated with various minion cartoons and each card also helpfully tells you how it can be used. It is a fast-paced fun game and, after a few arguments, we easily got the hang of it. For some reason it always seems to be me who explodes first, haven’t quite worked that one out yet!

Overall, I would highly recommend this game for families as it is fun and engaging and is also fairly short to play so keeps children’s attention.  I would have loved to see this in a travel sized box as being a pack of cards it would be great to take away on holiday, but is a little large for that.

We are keen to try out some of the other Exploding Kittens games in the future as they all sound fab.  

Rating: 4/5

RRP: £15.00

This product can be purchased from the Exploding Kittens website here.