Exploding Kittens Mantis Card Games Fun Family Games for Adults Teens & Kids for Game Night, Popular Kid Games, 2-6 players

Product Information

One of the funniest parts about Mantis is that it’s based on the viral comic from The Oatmeal’s Matthew Inman called “ Why the Mantis Shrimp is my new favorite animal.” A print out of the comic is included with each game, and while it’s not required reading for the game, you must read it simply for the laughs. Readers will be taken on a journey to learn about how these rainbow-colored creatures are more than meets the eye. The comic says that “aquariums don’t typically house mantis shrimps because they tend to slaughter every other creature they share a tank with,” and that is the energy I needed to take with me to play this game. (For legal reasons, that is a joke.) Mantis | Source: Exploding Kittens I do kind of wish there were a clearer way to tell how many points other players have. It’s not like anyone’s trying to keep anything secret, but I’d like to know how close other players are to scoring. Some simple tokens would be great, or just having player splay cards explicitly or something. But I suppose it doesn’t matter that much. Mantis is dead simple to play, and I love that. Your goal is to get 10 Mantis Shrimp cards into your Score pile, and you’ll need to steal a few if you want to get there. The players must work their way out of town along a dark road, dealing with the threats they encounter along the way - which may or may not include their companion. | Image credit: Distant Rabbit Games This is a more advanced covering of the loot-table of Mantis. Each item has an independent chance and count, in which the chance is the chance it can drop and the count is the amount of items that have that chance. If a count larger than 2 is in one section, then each item has an independent chance from one another (EX: Instead of getting say 1-2 of a resource, you can get 1 with a 70% chance and another with an additional 70% chance). In terms of Stealing, it can take one item from every section of the loot table, so even if a item count is say 5, the player will only steal one from that section.

If you have chosen to score and you do have cards that match the colour revealed, the card gets added to them and they are all flipped over to show the rainbow side. These then get placed underneath your area in your score pile. If you don’t have the matching colour, the card gets added to your area face up as another colour to be scored later (or STOLEN!). In real life, the Orchid Mantis is native to the rain forests of Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia. It is also found in the Western Ghats of India.Are you a fan of family titles from Exploding Kittens? You can guarantee at any family get-together, whether it be Christmas, New Year - one particular looney The Oatmeal title will make its way to the table. Whether it be Bears Vs Babies, Throw, Throw Burrito or the classic Exploding Kittens. They are always a bunch of fun, simple to learn and fab for a social atmosphere.

Besides Snap, Mantis is probably the simplest card game I have ever played. And when I say that, I do it without a shred of hypercolour hyperbole or criticism.

Side guide

Yeah, the whole mantis shrimp theme doesn’t really come through in the gameplay at all. I’m going to assume it’s one of those Oatmeal things that I don’t really get since I don’t actively consume the comic content. It doesn’t bother me in any way; it just doesn’t really have anything to do with the game proper. I like a weird theme, but I also like a weird theme that feels integrated into the gameplay in a way that matters, rather than just a weird theme for the sake of a weird theme. Though, I’ll freely admit that a weird theme for its own sake is still better than a boring one.

Honestly, the simplicity of this game is very appealing. I really like that there are only two actions? It makes the game dead simple to teach other players, and it’s the kind of game that I could see my family actually playing with me (as opposed to the more overtly complex games that I love so much). It reminds me a bit of PUSH, in the “unexpected simple game that’s great within its niche” way. Also, shout out to Exploding Kittens who has launched its Youth Program outreach in celebration of this new game. The company’s program provides select summer camps and youth organizations with Exploding Kittens games, free of charge. With nearly 1,000 games already fulfilled since January, the company will be adding Mantis to the expanded program to get games in the hands of more kids. ( Organizations looking to participate can join the waitlist.) Despite its slight resistance, a Poison build with Widow Armor/ Mother Demon Armor and a Widow Dagger is extremely powerful in the fight. The Mantis is one of the hardest bosses in the game, but using some strategies can make it much easier:Sealing the deal inked by the gameplay is the impeccable atmosphere created by Mantis Falls. Its sepia, typewritten cards are soaked in moonlight and ebbing streetlamps. The few supporting characters encountered by players appear as noir silhouettes, with delightfully pulp descriptions like “Ms Cardello, the woman with volition” and “Mr Edwards, the man with connections”. Events, meanwhile, have terse, evocative names like “purge”, “witch hunt” and “the whistling wind”. With its sparing brushes of theme, it sharply conjures the feeling of crunching along a sidewalk in the cold, dark night, glancing behind you every few steps and listening through the silence for a second set of footsteps. Mantis is a card game for 2-6 players with a recommended age of 7+. The game features artwork inspired by the mantis shrimp, a colorful crustacean that was previously featured in a comic by artist Matthew Inman, who is also known as The Oatmeal. Inman is co-founder of the Exploding Kittens tabletop game company. Action cards of the same suit can be comboed together, with players working together - or apart - on each turn. Image: Distant Rabbit Games

There are also special rules for two players which work fine too – effectively, when you steal successfully, you get to have another turn, and the winning threshold is 15 rainbows. Final Thoughts If the player is trying to steal cards from another player and they flip over a card that matches one or more cards in the opponent’s Tank, they can steal the matching cards and place these cards (including the card they drew) in their own Tank. If the card they flipped over doesn’t match any of the cards in their opponent’s Tank, the opponent adds the card to their Tank instead. Key to this is that often only one player actually gets to see the event, even after it’s resolved. While you can’t cheat by altering a hidden event’s effects, you can twist the truth - or outright lie - to try and manipulate your companion. You might pretend a minor foe needs as much firepower as possible to see off - leaving your target defenceless - or insist you had to deal them wounds, keeping schtum about the card’s choice of dividing them as you like.Rather than working things out through pure discussion, Mantis Falls puts an explosive card game at its centre. Each turn, the two players both have the chance to play a series of action cards from their hands. There’s a light bit of combo potential, with cards in a matching suit able to be strung into a series of actions. These abilities can be used to hurry along the road to freedom, call in helpful allies and more. Most of the time, though, you’ll be using them to fend off enemies that put you in their sights.