What happens when you mix Russian roulette, kittens, explosions and cards together? A US$8.7 million Kickstarter, breaking records for the most backers in the history of the crowd-funding website.

The Exploding Kittens Kickstarter started 30 days ago, asking for a measly US$10,000 with some stretch goals for further development. In an AMA yesterday by the three co-creators, Matthew Inman, Elan Lee and Shane Small, the trio said they had no idea the idea would be so popular.

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Matthew Inman is part of the reason for success, known by his alter-ego The Oatmeal, his hilarious and weird comics attract millions of viewers every month, and Exploding Kittens' cards have the same style.

The whole concept of Exploding Kittens is rather humorous in its own right, without the explosions and kittens. Essentially, the exploding kitten card is death, but there are a range of ways to avoid death, like peaking, shuffling and countering.

The team added new cards as the funding continued to increase, including a NSFW pack and other decks. Inman says the goal now is to ship all 200,000 packs to backers before July 2015.

It is one of the largest Kickstarters to date, with only Pebble smartwatch and Coolest cooler beating Exploding Kittens in amount pledged - although these were both larger Kickstarters costing US$129, instead of US$25 for the cards.

TagsExploding Kittens, Kickstarter, crowdfunding, Card Games