Kittens + explosions + card game = almost US$2m and counting

21 Jan 2015

Exploding Kittens successful Kickstarter campaign post. Image via Kickstarter

A Kickstarter campaign to create a card game called Exploding Kittens that asked for US$10,000 in a month has surpassed the amount, currently standing at just under US$2m in just one day.

The game designed by Matthew Inman, the creator of the online cartoon series, The Oatmeal, have probably underestimated how much the internet loves ‘kittens and explosions and laser beams and sometimes goats.’

At the time of writing, the card game’s Kickstarter campaign, which contains hilarious drawings of kittens both exploding and non-exploding, has raised exactly US$1,916,741, with 49,251 backers, but this figure is increasing by hundreds of dollars every second, soon to push it past the mark where it has made 200 times more than expected.

The game is described by its creators Inman, Elan Lee (Xbox, ARGs) and Shane Small (Xbox, Marvel) as a ‘kitty-powered Russian roulette’, that promises to gradually get more intense as the game goes on.

Some of the cards to be featured in Exploding Kittens. Image via Kickstarter

Based off other Kickstarter projects ranked as the fastest ones to reach US$1m, it would appear Exploding Kittens’ achievement of reaching 1,000pc of its original target in an hour puts it easily as one of the fastest in the site’s history.

This is not the first time Inman has tried to raise funding for one of his projects. Last year, he was able to get US$1m in backing from none other than renowned philanthropist and entrepreneur Elon Musk for a museum dedicated to legendary inventor Nikola Tesla.

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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