Zombie Kittens is a card game about avoiding Exploding Kittens and returning eliminated participants to play. It can function as a standalone game rather than requiring another edition. The deck contains 61 cards, including Zombie Kittens, Exploding Kittens, Cat Cards, and several action types connected with living and dead players. There is no continuous plot or campaign, although the illustrations and card names establish an undead-cat theme.

Preparing the Draw Pile

Each player begins with one Zombie Kitten and seven additional cards, creating an eight-card hand. The deck receives one fewer Exploding Kitten than the number of participants, ensuring that only one player can remain alive at the end. Different subsets of cards are used for two-player and three-player games, while groups of four or five use the complete deck. The remaining cards form a face-down Draw Pile in the center of the table.

Playing Cards Before the Draw

During a turn, a player may use any number of cards or play none. Most action cards are placed face up in the Discard Pile and resolved immediately. Drawing from the top of the deck ends the turn. If that card is an Exploding Kitten, the player must use a Zombie Kitten or become Dead. Dead participants keep their remaining cards but stop taking regular turns until they are revived.

Important card effects include:

• See the Future reveals the next three cards privately.
• Skip ends the current turn without drawing.
• Attack ends the turn and gives additional turns to the next player.
• Shuffle changes the order of the Draw Pile.
• Dig Deeper lets a player inspect the top card before deciding whether to keep it.
• Clone copies the effect of the card directly beneath it.
• Feed the Dead transfers cards from living players to a selected dead participant.
• Grave Robber makes dead players shuffle cards back into the deck.

Death Does Not End Participation

Zombie Kittens has no levels, maps, equipment upgrades, or campaign stages. Its progression is determined by the changing number of living and dead players. Some cards marked for immediate use, along with Nope cards, may still be played by dead participants. However, dead players normally cannot be targeted by Favor cards, theft combinations, or other effects unless a card specifically states otherwise.

When a living player uses a Zombie Kitten to survive an explosion, they secretly return the Exploding Kitten to any position in the Draw Pile. If someone is currently dead, the player must also revive one of them. The revived participant’s visible Exploding Kitten is returned to the deck as well, placing two hazards back into circulation. Play continues until only one living player remains. Effective play involves monitoring the deck size, saving defensive cards, and deciding whether immediate survival is preferable to temporary death. Because revival can alter the number and positions of Exploding Kittens, information gained earlier may quickly become unreliable.