TheOatmeal.com founder Matthew Inman, former Xbox design chief
How do you play the Exploding Kittens card game? Players take a card from the deck each turn. If a player draws an “exploding kitten” card, then that player loses the game unless he or she uses a "defuse card." To avoid getting the exploding kitten card, the player's goal is to use up all of the cards in their hand. There are cards that lets you skip a turn, attack other players, peek at the deck or relocate an exploding kitten card. There are also “cat cards” that let you use special powers when played as multiples.
The Exploding Kittens game comes with 56 cards and instructions. For $20, you can get the kid friendly version. If you pay $35, then you will get the regular Exploding Kittens deck with a bonus set of NSFW cards. At $100, you will get two unsigned decks and two signed decks. And $500 will get you two signed decks, two unsigned decks and each member of the Exploding Kittens team will draw whatever you want in the form of a card.
The trio came up with the idea for Exploding Kittens after Shane Small proposed an idea for a game to Elan Lee where a joker was inserted into a deck of cards and they took turns until it came up. That game was called Bomb Squad and “it wasn’t any fun at all.” Small and Lee ended up tinkering around with some other ideas and developed a new rule-set over the next few weeks. Inman heard about the game and asked if he could join because he thought it was fun. The name was changed to Exploding Kittens after that. The team loves kittens and did not want to promote animal abuse so they started exploring the concept of kittens blowing themselves up by doing dumb things like chewing on a grenade pin. Check out this video demo of Exploding Kittens:
The game supports 2-4 players, but you can accommodate up to 8 players if you buy a second deck. It takes a few minutes to learn and each round lasts between 10 and 20 minutes. AdMagic was sourced by the Exploding Kittens team to print out the cards -- which is a company also known for printing another popular card game funded by Kickstarter called Cards Against Humanity.
Exploding Kittens - Exploding Kittens Cards / Credit: Kickstarter
Exploding Kittens - Defuse Cards / Credit: Kickstarter
This is not the first time Inman became involved in a crowdfunding campaign. In August 2012, Inman launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to raise $1.7 million for a nonprofit organization called the Tesla Science Center to buy the Wardenclyffe Tower in Long Island, New York. Wardenclyffe Tower (also known as Tesla Tower) was a wireless transmission station designed and built by Nikola Tesla for sending messages and images across the Atlantic to England and to ships that are at sea. After financier J.P. Morgan refused to offer additional investments, the project was abandoned in 1906.
Inman's goal was to buy the property for $850,000 and restore the facility to honor Nikola Tesla. The state of New York agreed to match donations up to half the amount if the fundraiser was able to pull in $850,000.
The Oatmeal website receives millions of visitors every month and has a Facebook Page with over 3 million "likes." The website features entertaining comics drawn by Inman and sells merchandise like books, t-shirts, stress balls, bumper stickers, water bottles, magnets and wall calendars. Some of my favorite comics on The Oatmeal include The 5 Phases of Caffeine Intake and 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth.
