The thematic goal is to prevent curious, cuddly little kittens from detonating themselves and, via proximity, you. Mechanically, Exploding Kittens is fairly straightforward. She handed me one of them as I sat down, and continued laughing uncontrollably. By the time I got back to the table with a beer she was already halfway through her glass of wine and the deck, giggling like a little kid at every single card. I handed over the deck of cards, still in its shrink wrap, to my friend Tricia a few days later. Was the deck of cards laying there like a cat turd on my kitchen table a fun game? Was it even functional? It was time to find out.

Making the Exploding Kittens campaign all the more remarkable is the fact that it was accomplished without anyone outside of a very small group of creators and play testers ever having experienced it. How obscene? The next-most successful game of any kind - inXile's Torment: Tides of Numenera - earned less than half what Exploding Kittens did, while the next-most successful physical game - a Conan the Barbarian-themed board game - earned roughly a third as much money. The simplicity of that description, when coupled with The Oatmeal's viral art, helped push the Exploding Kittens Kickstarter campaign to obscene heights. Together with his partners - Shane Small and webcomic Matthew Inman (who is better known as The Oatmeal) - promoted Exploding Kittens as a 'a highly strategic kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette.' Artificial Intelligence, as well as Halo's I Love Bees ARG.

Lee is himself a game designer, famous in some circles for his work as the lead designer of The Beast, a promotional event for Steven Spielberg's movie A.I. 'Whelp,' I wrote co-creator Elan Lee via email that afternoon, 'the confetti was a very nice touch.' A deck of 50-some cards along with a handful of yellow and orange paper scraps.

No one is getting rich from Exploding Kittens' $8.7 million Kickstarter

Exploding kittens computer game