Boom! Bang!

A lot of people were out sick or not in for work today. We were still able to pull together a group of 4. We started with one of Bryan's games.

Exploding Kittens 2-5 players
This was a Kickstarter game that sold really well mainly because it's from the maker(s) of The Oatmeal. I was told to get it by a friend, but it seemed a little silly, plus I'm not a fan of cats even if they are exploding.

It's a luck based card game. Each player starts with 5 cards, one of which is a defuse card. The rest of the cards are shuffled to make the draw deck. This deck also includes one less exploding kitten card then there are players. On a player's turn, they may play as many of their cards as they want. Some of the actions on the cards include skipping your turn, forcing another player to take your turn, canceling another players attack, or looking at the top three cards in the deck. Most of the cards have no action, but instead include weird cat variations (e.g. taco cat or beard cat). If you play a matching pair, you can steal a card from another player. At the end of your turn, you must draw one card from the top of the deck. If it's an exploding kitten, you lose and are out of the game, unless you have a defuse card. In that case, you get to put the exploding kitten back in the deck in whatever position in the deck you want. Once all the exploding kittens have done their duty, the last living player wins.

I got the brunt of attacks at the beginning of the game, but was the last one to be eliminated. I didn't have much of a chance. Bryan had a lot of good draws. He is a very luck man.
It's a good game. I had fun and it plays pretty quick. It does force a bit of a pile on since if one person starts stealing from you, everyone does since the probability of getting a defuse from that person increases. I was that guy. I would gladly play again, but I'd never buy it. I don't want my games to meow at me when I open them.

We quickly followed up with...

Good Cop Bad Cop 3-8 players
I just got this game in the mail as part of the Game Box Monthly, it and the expansion. I had interest in buying this game so I was glad to see it when I opened the box.

In the game setup, each player is given an equipment card and three face down integrity cards. The cards mostly say "Honest" or "Crooked". Which ever type of card you have the most of defines what team you are on. There are two other cards: Agent and Kingpin. If you have the Agent or Kingpin card, the other integrity cards you have don't matter, you are the leader of the Honest or Crooked team respectively. The goal of the game is to kill the leader of the opposing team. On a player's turn, they can do 1 of 4 things: look at one integrity card of another player, draw a new equipment card and flip over one of your own integrity cards, pick up a gun and flip over one of your own integrity cards, or shoot your gun at the player you're aiming at then drop the gun. If you are holding a gun at the end of your turn, you may aim it at a new player. If a player is shot, they are either eliminated from the game, or they reveal their Agent or Kingpin card and take a wounded token. Once the Agent or Kingpin takes a second wound, they die. Equipment cards can be played at anytime, unless the card says otherwise, and they tend to bend the rules of the game temporarily.

I was the Agent and I grabbed a gun after every other player looked at integrity cards. I took aim at the player who looked at my Agent card. I shot them since they didn't seem to make a move to help me. I got lucky and shot the crooked player. In instructing them on how to die, I gave a little clue that I was the Agent. Bryan was still a little doubtful, but changed his aim to Carol. I then stole Carol's gun leaving her doomed. Even if I hadn't let it slip, Bryan and I still would have won, but I still feel a little bad.
I liked this game and I can only see it getting better as the number of players increases. There is just so much more mystery. I'm going to try and play this again over the weekend.

Tally: 115/172  Bonus: 27/50