Exploding Kittens is an analog card game for 2-5 players. It is also incredibly highly aniticipated.

Exploding Kittens closed down its crowd funding window last night, earning a historic total of $8.78 million from a record-breaking total of 219,382 backers.

Luke Crane, community manager for games at Kickstarter, admitted, “Until Exploding Kittens came along, we hadn’t seen the Internet at large descend on a project and embrace it at this crazy scale.”

Exploding Kittens is now on level with the two highest funded Kickstarter campaigns, the Coolest Cooler and Pebble Watch.

Exploding Kittens is a collaboration involving Elan Lee, former chief design officer for Xbox Entertainment Studios, Matthew Inman, creator of The Oatmeal, and Shane Small, an Xbox and Marvel game designer.

Elan Lee, during a Reddit AMA, said “We made a promise to more than 200 thousand people to ship them this game. That’s our highest priority right now.”

When Kickstarter backers donate money, sometimes they get prizes. In this case, a $20 contribution earned you a deck. Anything over that would earn other rewards like an x-rated version or other Exploding Kittens merchandise.

Elan Lee is surprised at the popularity of Exploding Kittens, but when asked if he was disappointed that this old-school card game is his big moment, he laughed and said, “It’s not an old-fashioned card game.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zodA26a_oFQ

He added, “You have to keep in mind there’s two elements going on simultaneously. This card game is a thing that no one has experienced yet. No one actually has any idea what this game is. We know it’s lovely and really fun, but nobody else knows that yet.

Exploding Kittens is expected to be shipped to donors in July.

Are you looking forward to when Exploding Kittens will be on your card table?