Exploding Kittens Sets New Game Kickstarter Records

There's a new record-holder for the most-funded Kickstarter game project of all time. The crowdfunding campaign for card game Exploding Kittens has ended at $8.7 million, surpassing the Ouya microconsole, which previously held the record at $8.6 million.

It also broke another record. With 219,832 unique backers, Exploding Kittens is the most-backed project in Kickstarter's history--and by a wide margin. The next closest is the Reading Rainbow revival from LeVar Burton, which attracted 105,857 total backers.

Exploding Kittens isn't the most-funded Kickstarter project overall, however, as that achievement goes to the "Coolest Cooler," which raised more than $13.2 million last year. The card game is, however, the number three overall Kickstarter project since the crowdfunding platform launched in 2009.

Though it's a physical card game and not a video game, Exploding Kittens does have ties to gaming. The project was conceived by Xbox veterans Elan Lee and Shane Small, as well as The Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman.

In Exploding Kittens, players take turns drawing cards until one unfortunate player picks up an exploding kitten card and loses the game. It's not all luck, however.

"The deck is made up of cards that let you avoid exploding by peeking at cards before you draw, forcing your opponent to draw multiple cards, or shuffling the deck," its creators explain. The game should become increasingly intense with every card drawn because fewer cards remaining in the deck means there's a better chance of drawing the exploding kitten card.

The Exploding Kittens Kickstarter campaign originally asked for $10,000, a milestone it achieved in a matter of minutes. As a result of the extra funding, developers have added new things such as the standard deck now supporting up to five players instead of four. The team also recently organized pizza parties at local animal shelters to celebrate the final week of funding.

Exploding Kittens is scheduled to be delivered to backers this July.

[Editor's Note: The original version of this article stated that the Kickstarter asked for $100,000. The actual amount was $10,000, which has been corrected above.]