Netflix Developing Mobile Game, Animated Series Based On Exploding Kittens (Yes, The Card Game)
The best kind of card game involves intentionally sabotaging other players to transform friends into enemies for a small period of time. In the game of "Exploding Kittens" — created by Elan Lee and Matthew Inman, the brains behind the popular comics site The Oatmeal, and Shane Small — players are able to play as many action cards as they want before drawing a card and praying that they didn't pull the Exploding Kitten card to kick them out of the game. Action cards allow players to do things like shuffle the "draw from" deck, take a peek at the cards that are on their way, and even plant their own Exploding Kitten card somewhere in the deck to intentionally bamboozle their competitors.
"Exploding Kittens" was successfully crowdfunded as the third biggest Kickstarter of all time upon completion of the campaign, and the ridiculously popular game has since spawned multiple expansion packs, and a full on card game empire. (Their game "Bears vs. Babies" rules, for the record.)
Well, it seems that Netflix wants a slice of that popularity, as they have ordered an adult animated series based on the popular game. Tom Ellis of "Lucifer" fame and Lucy Liu, goddess among mere mortals, are both set to star in the series, which is being executive produced by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels who famously created "King of the Hill" together while separately creating other hugely popular series like "Beavis and Butt-Head," "Silicon Valley," "The Office," and "Parks and Recreation." The show is said to focus on the perpetual antipathy between Heaven and Hell, exacerbated when God and the Devil exist on Earth in the form of chonky cats. Please let Lucy Liu play the cat God. PLEASE.
There's no defusing this hot streak
The "Exploding Kittens" series is the latest in Netflix' attempt to get into the world of mobile gaming, as the animated series will also bring a mobile game adaptation of "Exploding Kittens" due out in May. The animated series isn't expected to drop until sometime in 2023, but joining Judge and Daniels are Shane Kosakowski and Matthew Inman who will be serving as the series' showrunners.
"Netflix is the only service that could bring Exploding Kittens to life in both a series and a game," Inman said in a statement. "We actually launched 'Exploding Kittens' on Kickstarter as a weekend project, but our community has been the heart and soul of the company over the past six years."
"Our goal is to offer our members great entertainment they'll love in whatever format they may enjoy — whether it be a game or an animated series," said Leanne Loombe, head of external games at Netflix. "As we expand our mobile games catalog, we're excited to partner with the Exploding Kittens digital team to bring this enjoyable game to all age groups, including a few exciting updates exclusively for our members." The mobile game will play similarly to the physical card game, but will add two exclusive cards to the deck–Radar, which tells players the location of the Exploding Kitten card closest to the top of the deck, and Flip Flop, which reverses the order of the cards in the deck. The game will be available to all Netflix subscribers for free.
As for the series, joining Ellis and Liu are Abraham Lim ("Clickbait," "The Boys"), Ally Maki ("Wrecked," "Toy Story 4"), Mark Proksch ("What We Do In The Shadows," "Better Call Saul") and Sasheer Zamata ("Woke," "Home Economics"). Bring on the bomb cat destruction!