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Probably one of the first modern board games (or card games even) that sparked my interest in this whole gaming lifestyle I’m now quite fond of was exploding kittens. Coming from a family who always played games and have a great sense of humour, something about the potential destruction of cute fluffy critters in card form spoke to me! Needless to say it was a hit, and for a long time exploding kittens was our go to search for new games as we just didn’t know where else to look.
Power Hungry Pets Is their version of Love Letter, a reimagining if you will, with less princesses to win over but more domesticated animals on the search for maniacal glory!
Love Letter On Cat-Nip!
Love letter is a game that I’ve been aware of, but I’d never felt the need to buy or even play for that matter. It just didn’t tick enough boxes for me, the theme is too nice, the packaging didn’t grab me and although it’s a tiny game, it’s in a bag not a box – I know It’s all about looks, I’m very shallow.
Well Power Hungry Pets snuck in my collection under the guise of a familiar face and what a sneaky game it is. For those of you that have played Love letter before the gameplay of this will be familiar but with a few new twists thrown in for good measure.
The game consists of just 21 cards numbered 0 to 10 and the idea is to be the player with the highest numbered card at the end of the round, that’s provided you don’t get eliminated before then. Manage to do this 2 or 3 times (depending on player count) and you reign victorious!
Hungry For More, Ya Filthy Kitten!
In Power Hungry Pets, every card has a number and an action, there tends to be more of the lower numbered cards in the deck and as you may expect the higher numbers are scarcer. Included as part of the rules is a handy card reference detailing how many of which number there are, which can be kept on display during play if you wish.
The game format is simple, everyone is dealt one card at the beginning, then on your turn you draw a card and choose one of the two cards you now hold to play. You will also remove one card from the deck and put out of play face down (to add an air of mystery). When the draw pile is empty or all players bar one have been eliminated the round ends. The player with the highest numbered card or the last player standing receives a crown token, depending on how many players you have will dictate how many tokens are needed to win.
That’s it! They’re the rules of the game. That’s all you need to know in order to play.
Of course you’ll also need the bluffing skills of a seasoned poker player, the luck of a leprechaun and the card counting ability of a… um… well card counter! You see theres a fine balance of actions spread throughout the cards, often some of the higher value cards have the better abilities, but if you play them to use the ability then you’ve lost a high card from your hand. The lower value cards abilities seem less useful sometimes, especially at the start of a round, but if you’re cunning about how you play you might yet make use of them. For instance if you play the 1 card you can try an eliminate an opponent by guessing their card number, shot in the dark at the start but as time passes and cards are shed, you can form more of an opinion about what cards must be left. But no one wants to hold onto a low card for long in case they’re forced to compare with another player where the lowest card gets eliminated.
With other actions such as swap hands with another player, shuffling everyone’s hands back into the draw pile or forcing someone to play their card it’s a rollercoaster of a game trying to figure out who has what, and is it worth hanging onto that high card or should you play it for the benefit? Although being left with the top card, the ‘king cat’ valued at 10 is a bit of a double edged sword.
A Round Of A-Paws Please
Power Hungry Pets is a game for 2 to 6 players, it is very much a quick party style game, a great pick up and play, easy to get to grips with. To make sure I had the full lowdown for you I went and found a copy of love letter to play and discovered there are a few differences. This has 5 more cards than the original, probably accounting for the maximum player count upping from 4 to 6 players, which really helps put it right in the party mix. Theres also a wider range of numbers on the cards and some different actions to be used compared to the original too.
Because theres quite a bit of luck of the draw involved, personally I don’t like how Power Hungry Pets plays at two players. Despite that fact you remove two extra cards to play with 2 people, the game can still be over almost before it’s begun if the cards happen to fall that way. In fact I didn’t like this game at first because I played it at two players, but adding even just one more player gives you a better mix most of the time so I would recommend having at least 3 to play. I also feel it could’ve been in a smaller box - I know, I know I didn’t like the bag for the original. The box is similar in dimension to a standard exploding kitten’s box which is nice as it sits well with their other titles but theres a lot of room inside. It could easily have been half the thickness, unless future expansions are planned? And while expansions seems in line with exploding kittens, it doesn’t so much with love letter games.
Overall Power Hungry Pets is great, it’s got all your original gameplay with a few extra tricks thrown in and it’s all wrapped up in the shape of tormenting household pets desperate to get one up on each other. This is much more of an aesthetic I can get on board with, so if your mind works like mine, this is the version to get. I think theres a few more twists going on with Power Hungry Pets compared to the original so you could consider this a weird animal themed upgrade, but I don’t necessarily think you’ll need to own both – unless you want to of course!
