Exploding Kittens
| "A card game for people who are into kittens and explosions and laser beams and sometimes goats" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Designers | Elan Lee, Shane Small |
| Illustrators | Matthew Inman |
| Publishers | The Oatmeal |
| Publication | July 2015 |
| Genres | Card game |
| Languages | English |
| Players | 2-5 |
| Setup time | < 1 min |
| Playing time | 15 min |
| Age range | 7+ |
| Website | explodingkittens.com |
Exploding Kittens is a card game designed by Elan Lee, Shane Small and Matthew Inman from the comics site The Oatmeal. Originally proposed as a Kickstarter project seeking US$10,000 in crowdfunding, it exceeded the goal in eight minutes[1] and on January 27, 2015, seven days after opening, it passed 106,000 backers setting the record for most backers in Kickstarter history. At completion on February 19, 2015, it had $8,782,571 USD in pledges by 219,382 backers. The campaign ended as the fourth most funded campaign on the crowdfunding site.[2] The first play test of Exploding Kittens was recorded on YouTube by Smosh Games, who had the first deck.[3] The backers started receiving delivery in late July 2015; all backers are expected to receive the game by August or September 2015.[4][5][6][7]
Gameplay
According to the site, the game is "essentially Russian Roulette; you draw cards until you draw an Exploding Kitten, at which point you explode and lose." A player may play as many or as few cards as they choose during their turn, but must end their turn by drawing a card.
The card types are as follows:
- Exploding Kitten: a player loses when they draw this card, unless they have a Defuse card in which case the Defuse is discarded and the Exploding Kitten placed back into the deck.
- Defuse: allows the player to continue playing after drawing an Exploding Kitten.
- Skip: the player ends their turn without drawing a card.
- Attack: the player ends their turn(s) without drawing a card and the next player takes two turns.
- See the Future: the player views the top three cards of the deck.
- Shuffle: the player shuffles the deck.
- Favor: another player must give the player a card from their hand.
- Nope: stops the action of another player. Cannot be used on Exploding Kittens or Defuse cards.
- Cards without instructions must be played in matched pairs, and allow the player to take a random card from another player's hand.
The deck contains multiple cards of each type, but they are distinguished from each other by unique flavor text.
Kickstarter details
Exploding Kittens has become the third biggest Kickstarter campaign of all-time, raising $8.8m on the crowdfunding website.[8] In just its first day Exploding Kittens earned nearly $1.3m and grew to nearly 35k backers. By day 3 the project was over 80k backers raising over $3m.[9] The creators of the game were initially trying to raise just 10,000 USD, but ended up getting 219,382 backers on the crowdfunding website.[10][11]
Achievements
On February 3, 2015, achievements were announced in lieu of stretch goals because the game designers did not want to delay production or distribution of the game to backers. As of February 16, 2015, 30 achievements had been unlocked and the second stretch goal (Unlock 20 Achievements) and third stretch goal (Unlock 30 Achievements) were completed. With the first stretch goal accomplished, the company expanded the NSFW deck to a full stand-alone game.[12] The second stretch goal gave an upgraded storage box which holds two full decks of cards to all backers of the campaign,[13] and the third and final stretch goal includes a Kickstarter-exclusive surprise in the box.[14]
| Level | Completed | Date |
|---|---|---|
| 100% Funded | Yes | February 4, 2015 |
| 1000% Funded | Yes | February 4, 2015 |
| 10,000% Funded | Yes | February 4, 2015 |
| 100,000% Funded | No | ... |
| Create An Exploding Kittens Wikipedia Page | Yes | February 4, 2015 |
| 1,000 Backers | Yes | February 4, 2015 |
| 10,000 Backers | Yes | February 4, 2015 |
| 100,000 Backers | Yes | February 4, 2015 |
| 150,000 Backers | Yes | February 11, 2015 |
| Most-Backed Card Game Ever | Yes | February 4, 2015 |
| Most-Backed Game Ever | Yes | February 4, 2015 |
| Most-Backed Campaign Ever | Yes | February 4, 2015 |
| Post 25 Pics of a Real Tacocat | Yes | February 9, 2015 |
| Post 25 Pics of Magical Enchiladas | Yes | February 10, 2015 |
| 100 Twitter Followers | Yes | February 4, 2015 |
| 1,000 Twitter Followers | Yes | February 4, 2015 |
| 10,000 Twitter Followers | Yes | February 4, 2015 |
| 50,000 Twitter Followers | Yes | February 7, 2015 |
| 100,000 Twitter Followers | Yes | February 25, 2016... |
| Post 5 Photos of Weaponized Back Hair | Yes | February 9, 2015 |
| 100 Facebook Likes | Yes | February 4, 2015 |
| 1,000 Facebook Likes | Yes | February 4, 2015 |
| 10,000 Facebook Likes | Yes | February 4, 2015 |
| 100,000 Facebook Likes | Yes | February 17, 2015 |
| Post 25 Selfies with Goats | Yes | February 9, 2015 |
| Post 25 Pics of a Beardcat | Yes | February 6, 2015 |
| Post 25 Pics of a Potatocat | Yes | February 6, 2015 |
| Post a Photo of 10 People Wearing Cat Ears | Yes | February 6, 2015 |
| Post a Photo of 50 People Wearing Cat Ears | Yes | February 10, 2015 |
| Post a Photo of 100 People Wearing Cat Ears | Yes | February 16, 2015 |
| Post Five Youtube Videos of Songs About Exploding Kittens | Yes | February 11, 2015 |
| Post a Picture of Ten Batmans in One Hot Tub | Yes | February 9, 2015 |
| Post a Picture of Five Spidermans in One Kayak | Yes | February 9, 2015 |
Status
Exploding Kittens began shipping to Kickstarter backers in late July 2015.
Mobile version
In January 2016, a multiplayer version of the game was released on the iOS platform with new content not found in the original game.[15] In April 2016, the mobile version was also released onto the Android platform, and allowed for cross-platform play between all mobile versions.[16][17]
The mobile-exclusive card types are as follows:
- Slap: The player ends their turn and makes another player take any other turns they have left plus 1 more.
- Reverse: Reverses turn order and player skips drawing a card.
- Draw from the Bottom: The player draws from the bottom of the deck and immediately ends their turn.
- Annoy (Expansion Pack): Makes two random cards in the target player's hand unplayable until they draw a card.
- Blind (Expansion Pack): Transforms all the target player's cards into cat butts.
The 'Attack' and 'Nope' cards from the original card game were not released in the mobile versions on iOS and Android.
References
- ^ Kooser, Amanda. "But why blow up cats? Inman gives inside scoop on Exploding Kittens". CNET. Retrieved February 4, 2015.
- ^ "Most Funded Kickstarter projects". Kickstarter. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
- ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhsgYhUDA_M
- ^ "Exploding Kittens by Elan Lee". Kickstarter. Retrieved February 10, 2015.
- ^ Imam, Jareen. "'Exploding Kittens' most backed Kickstarter ever". CNN. Retrieved January 29, 2015.
- ^ Vincent, James. "Exploding Kittens becomes the most backed Kickstarter project of all time". The Verge. Retrieved January 29, 2015.
- ^ Bischof, Jackie. "A Card Game About Exploding Kittens Broke a Kickstarter Record". Newsweek. Retrieved February 4, 2015.
- ^ Dredge, Stuart (February 23, 2015). "Exploding Kittens card game raises $8.8m on Kickstarter". The Guardian (UK). Retrieved March 4, 2015.
- ^ "Kicktraq:Exploding Kittens". Kicktraq. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
- ^ "Exploding Kittens". Kickstarter. Retrieved February 26, 2015.
- ^ "Kickstarter folk pay $8 MEELLION for joys of EXPLODING KITTENS". The Register. Retrieved February 26, 2015.
- ^ "Unstoppable". kickstarter.com. Retrieved February 26, 2015.
- ^ "We said "STRETCH" and you said "HOW FAR?"". kickstarter.com. Retrieved February 26, 2015.
- ^ "YOU DID IT! LET'S PARTY!". kickstarter.com. Retrieved February 26, 2015.
- ^ "The Oatmeal's wacky Exploding Kittens debuts on mobile with iOS game". VentureBeat. Retrieved January 21, 2016.
- ^ "'Exploding Kittens' is now on Android". Engadget. April 20, 2016. Retrieved April 22, 2016.
- ^ "'Exploding Kittens' Now Available On Android: New Cats, Hilarity And More". Tech Times. April 21, 2016. Retrieved April 22, 2016.