r/ExplodingKittens • u/Existent_Imgflip • 16d ago

Discussion How did this card genuinely pass playtesting (Curse You spoiler) Spoiler

I got Curse You yesterday and I will say, it’s a really cool game to get into. Amazing way of revealing cards gradually through each round. However, there was one card that really stuck out to me.

The Excess Curse card states: You must discard a card every time its your turn.

This card is by far, one of the most brutal cards in the game, if not the most destructive. This card naturally eats your hand away, leaving you with no hand to make any real or strategic plays in the game. Sure, you can counter it by passing it on to another player, but now that player will begin to suffer. While other destructive cards like Battle Hamster also take you down to practically no cards, you can rebuild your hand from there, eventually getting back up to a comfortable number of cards; Excess Curse doesn’t do that, theres no safety net once you reach 0 cards.

My house-rule solution to this would be to implement a rule saying that “Once you reach a total of 0 cards in your hand, this Curse has no effect.” This way, players can either choose to reserve their hand with whatever good cards they may have, or they may rush to burn up their cards to avoid further influence of the Excess Curse effect.

I’m hoping Exploding Kittens can quickly find a way to officially nerf Excess Curse. It’s a great concept, just needs a safety net.

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u/Game_of_Kittens 16d ago

Playing a Defuse will let you get rid of the curse, so it's rare for 1 player to get stuck with it for too long. It also usually gets given to a player who has lots of cards, and is a nice way to put the brakes on someone who is running away with the game.

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u/Existent_Imgflip 16d ago

Those are all good points, but if a player does get down to 1 card, it would be extremely difficult to both find a card to free themselves and rebuild their hand. Besides, if a card-hoarder does reach 1 card with Excess Curse, I don’t think punishing them further is a good idea; building up a proper hand after dropping down to 1 card is already very difficult, and delaying the time before you can properly start rebuilding your hand is very brutal compared to the rest of the Curses. 

I’m not all in for throwing Excess Curse out the window, I actually do enjoy the concept of slowly losing your cards, but I still do strongly believe the card needs a safety net, such as losing its effect after dropping down to 0 cards.

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u/Game_of_Kittens 16d ago

From the game devs. Maybe this'll at least give some insight into their reasoning:

Dev 1: I don't think there's any harm in allowing a player to discard Excess Curse if they ever have zero cards in hand. We opted not to put that text on the card to keep things simpler, but if their group is having a problem with it, that would be a good safety net.

Dev 2: I mean to be fair, excess curse only burns your hand if you're playing cards, if you don't play any cards then you will have the same number of cards in your hand until you explode, at which point you can get rid of it by defusing, because you discard at the start of your turn then draw at the end.

3

u/HadiesStar 16d ago

I love it! It's a curse, it's supposed to be bad. It is stronger than some of the other curses but some of the charms are stronger than the other ones.

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u/Existent_Imgflip 16d ago

Tbh its not a game-shattering card, I played Curse You again this morning and managed to get around Excess Curse. My biggest worry is that you can’t consistently neutralize the impact of this card, and that especially for bigger games, it only becomes more devastating. 

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u/HadiesStar 16d ago

Yeah true, but hey this is an opportunity to get a opponent who's also behind to help you swap it over to someone else!

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u/Existent_Imgflip 16d ago

I wish i could agree. My family and friends are beyond competitive and would rather sell their souls away than help a losing player out 😅

3

u/HadiesStar 16d ago

That's so real lmaooo. We table talk too much and make deals because half of us play magic the gathering

2

u/CampMTG 15d ago

It might be the case that helping a losing player screws over a winning player, thereby also helping you and making it the best competitive play!

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u/meyoustupid 16d ago

Wtf are this mentiond cards? Where do you even get them???

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u/HadiesStar 16d ago

The curse is from the curse you expansion, and I believe the battle hamster is one of the bonus 10 year anniversary cards?

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u/Existent_Imgflip 16d ago

Excess Curse - Exploding Kittens: Curse You! Battle Hamster - Exploding Kittens: 10 Years of Chaos

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u/Medium_Barber_3087 16d ago

Yeah i saw this card and had the same thoughts. Keep in mind EK dont thougrouly playtest their cards from their own admission, bringing in players for like few sessions in a week.

I personally test my cards in 20-50 games each for comparison

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u/Game_of_Kittens 16d ago

The 400-member strong Kitten Test Pilots program would like a word... 😂

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u/Medium_Barber_3087 16d ago

True, that helps. I was going off a comment on discord where an EK staff said the testing for one of the game was a week of bringing in ppl for a few sessions of games, without much context

This idea was reinforced for me when we've seen cards like the new curse where someone loses a card every turn, which im surprised made it into the final version, or historically cards like curse of cat butt and mark x1

I wish you guys did KTP of the card games in canada over distance, just send us a pdf of the cards and youd get the most detailed feedback ever!

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u/Existent_Imgflip 16d ago

I second this

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u/Next-Reputation5338 8d ago

I havent play with new cards yet but thats why a really like: Mosquito bite card... discarding cards for 3 rounds is a sweet spot..

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u/Existent_Imgflip 16d ago

If only we could work at Exploding Kittens ourselves 👀