This 'Exploding Kittens' Card Game Is Blowing Up on Kickstarter The makers of a new card game were aiming to raise $10,000 in 30 days. They hit that goal in less than 30 minutes, and have gone on to raise more than $2.5 million.
By Carly Okyle
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
Two days ago, two gaming gurus and an online comic genius launched a Kickstarter campaign for a new card game in the irreverent style of the popular Cards Against Humanity. The game, however, focuses on kittens. Exploding kittens.
Yes, really.*
Created by The Oatmeal's Matthew Inman, former Xbox design chief Elan Lee and former Xbox art director Shane Small, Exploding Kittens is basically Russian Roulette-meets-Uno. Surprisingly, the combination sounds insanely fun (sorry, PETA). Here's how it works: players draw a card from the deck each turn. If they draw an "exploding kitten" card, they lose. However, the deck also holds cards that allow players to peek before drawing a card or to force an opponent to draw multiple cards. There are also "diffuse" cards that offer a reprieve from a fiery kitten death via a laser pointer or a catnip sandwich, and other "cat" cards like Rainbow-ralphing Cat and Tacocat that offer advantages. Of course, for every helpful card that gets used (and is therefore no longer in the deck), there's a higher chance of drawing one of the game-ending exploding kittens.
Related: Beyond Gaming: Oculus Rift Founder's Predictions for Virtual Reality's Future
The makers of the game were aiming to raise $10,000 within 30 days. Within 30 minutes, the product was fully funded, and then some. Now, 48 hours later, donors have pledged over $2.7 million. Boom.
If that sounds too good to be true (like someone was lion or bein' a cheetah), we understand. We here at BIZ Experiences had our doubts, too, so we've reached out to the folks at Kickstarter to get their thoughts on this campaign. They haven't yet responded. To be honest, we'd be very disappointed if anything shady turned up, but we'll keep you posted.
The biggest concern now seems to be if they'll be able to scale quickly enough to fill the orders. There's only one question left: when can we play?
*Not really. No animals were harmed in the making or playing of this game.
