Managed to get in a few plays of Coup and Exploding Kittens at my sister’s this weekend (I also rode on a little train!)
Coup is ace, well worth the £12 it’ll cost you. The game is just 15 cards and some coin tokens. The cards consist of 5 roles (3 cards each), each role represents a figure at court you have influence over and gives you access to a power. For example the Duke lets you take more coins and block other users from taking coins. The Captain lets you steal coins from other players and prevents them stealing from you.
Each player has two cards, kept face down, and on your turn you can take a general action (take coins) or use the power of one of your cards. Except no-one knows which cards you have so you can use any power you like. Whenever a player claims to have a card any other player can challenge that claim. If the challenge is successful the lying player loses a card (once you lose both your cards you’re out), if the challenge is unsuccessful the challenging player loses a card.
The first few plays are tentative while everyone gets to grips with the cards (so you can bluff without having to look at your player aid) but once you get the hang it’s cracking fun. Highly recommend.
Exploding Kittens was… ok. I wonder if it would be more fun with more people? We had some really fun moments but the end an be a bit anticlimactic (I ended up with four defuse cards with less than a quarter of the deck to go which made it a bit of a foregone conclusion). I also found I barely looked at the card art while we played (unlike Coup which has *gorgeous* card art).
It was ok and may see more plays as part of a larger game session but I doubt it’ll ever trump any other game.