By Patrick R. ’23

Exploding Kittens:

Exploding Kittens is a creative card game with a variety of themed action cards. You go around collecting and playing cards, all while trying to not pull the Exploding Kitten, which makes you lose the game. It gets a 10/10 for creativity, with every card having a unique and funny scenario. You can attack with the groin-kicking panda, cancel a different card with the Nope-bell Peace prize, or skip your turn by donning a portable cheetah-butt. The gameplay holds up for the most part but has a habit of being centered around the last few cards in the deck, making a lot of the lead-up just picking cards without much gameplay. However, once you reach the point where it heats up, it’s full of exciting, strategic gameplay of trying to outdo the other people playing. This is definitely a game that gets more fun with more players, with the ideal number being around 4, but working with as few as 2 and as many as 5. You can increase that maximum by adding expansion packs or extra Exploding Kittens to the deck, which makes it easily adaptable. All around, it is a lot of fun to play for all ages, and for me, never seems to get old.

Final Rating: 9/10

Life’s a Pitch:

Life’s a Pitch is a multiplayer game where people are forced to choose ridiculous answers to open-ended questions, and then do their best to defend their answer within the parameters decided by a random die roll. The fun of the game comes from having to come up with some sort of story or explanation about why Taylor Swift would be the best governor of Texas, or why a pack of gummy worms is actually the most effective murder weapon. It’s most fun if everyone is willing to be enthusiastic, and maybe let go of logic a little bit for however long it takes to play. However, there are a few downsides, with one being that the game is quite complicated for new players, and often leaves people struggling to figure out what to do next. 9 times out of 10 when I’m playing, I end up explaining what to do as well. This is mostly due to how much each round changes based on whatever parameters there are for defending your answer, and people often have trouble keeping up. However, once people get into it, it’s very fun to just say whatever comes to your mind and enjoy the story you create. 

Final Rating: 7/10

Telestrations:

Telestrations is a multiplayer game where players are given prompts to try to draw, and then the next person tries to guess the drawing, and then somebody draws that guess, and so on until there has been one full loop. After there has been a full loop, the round ends and everybody shares the entirety of their notebooks, filled with funny drawings and bad guesses. One thing that can be seen as both a help and a hindrance for the game is the fact that there is no winner, and no way to really keep score of anything. The only way to “win” is to have fun and make sure everybody is laughing. The game is a ton of fun and works with all groups of people. Since there isn’t a need to know the people well or even be the same age as them, all you need to do is be able to talk with them and draw really, really badly (or really well). The best part is always the end, when everyone goes around sharing and showing their drawing capabilities and mental decisions throughout the game. Also, they’re usually hilariously bad, which makes it all the more entertaining. It could be fun to add in some sort of points system based on correct guesses, but as long as people are fine not getting competitive, the game flows extremely well as is.

Final Rating: 8/10