Exploding Kittens

Exploding Kittens

"A card game for people who are into kittens and explosions and laser beams and sometimes goats"
Designer(s)	Elan Lee, Shane Small
Illustrator(s)	Matthew Inman
Publisher(s)	The Oatmeal
Publication date	July 2015
Genre(s)	Card game
Language(s)	English
Players	2-5
Setup time	< 1 min
Playing time	15 min
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 received the game by September 2015.^[4][5][6][7]

Game rules

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]

Status

On April 11, 2015, Elite Team Kitten play tested the new game during the International Tabletop Day.

Exploding Kittens began shipping to Kickstarter backers in late July 2015.

In October 2016, the first expansion Imploding Kittens was released. It introduced the cards/mechanics of Alter the Future, Draw from the Bottom, and Reverse from the mobile game, and the new Imploding Kitten card/mechanic.

On July 30, 2017, the the Exploding Kittens Party Pack was released in addition to the [Cards Against Humanity] Hidden Compartment Pack at Target ^[15]. The party pack is an update to the original game that allows for up to 10 players. It removes the Attack card/mechanic and replaces it with the Slap mechanic from the mobile game. The mechanics introduced in the Imploding Kittens expansion are also included. The Hidden Compartment Pack contains 5 cards of the new mechanic, Blind as a Bat, and 15 new white CAH cards. The pack's name within Target is CARDHOLE.LOL and costs $4.

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.^[16] In April 2016, the mobile version was also released onto the Android platform, and allowed for cross-platform play between all mobile versions.^[17][18]

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. In the second expansion pack, you can also slap yourself. This card is basically the Attack card from the physical deck.
• 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 until they draw a card.
• Fake Shuffle (Expansion Pack 2): Pretends to shuffle the deck, visually showing it to all of the other players in the game. Even though other players see the card as a shuffle, you see it as a fake shuffle. Once you play this card, you get a randomized card.
• Kitten Role Call (Expansion Pack 2): Relocates all of the Exploding Kitten cards to the top of the deck.
• Alter the Future (Expansion Pack 2): You can see and alter the future, meaning you can change the order of cards and potentially avoid exploding.

The 'Attack' and 'Nope' cards from the original card game were not released in the mobile versions on iOS and Android.

References

External links

• Official website
• Exploding Kittens at Kickstarter