The guys who brought you “Exploding Kittens” have set their sights on a new target: Babies.
Elan Lee, the former chief design officer of Xbox Entertainment Studios, and The Oatmeal cartoonist Matthew Inman are crowdfunding a new game called “Bears vs. Babies.” Like “Exploding Kittens,” the game is already an overnight Kickstarter success. Within the first 24 hours, it blew past its goal of $10,000 raising over $1 million.
In “Bears vs. Babies,” players build part-robot, part-bear, all-awesome monsters that go to war with villainous babies.
“I’m a lifelong supporter of any movement that ends the scourge of attacks from terrible and ferocious babies inflicted on adorable, cuddly bears,” said Lee. “But building casual games that friends and families can play at parties and around the dinner table is my new passion. It’s quite a departure from what I’ve been doing for the last 20 years, however. I love video games and have spent the last 20 years building some of the biggest games in the world. But lately, I’ve noticed that staring at a screen and largely ignoring the other people in the room is too isolating.”
Lee and Inman aren’t just crowdsourcing funds for the game. They’re also asking backers to help them finalize the rules and test the game mechanics.
“It’s the community that we celebrate more than the money,” said Lee. “Our company lives and dies on our community, so we involve them in every aspect of what we’re doing.”
Lee and his team are trying to figure out what a second game means for the company. Will they create a separate entity as an umbrella for these and future games?
“We’re still thinking through that process,” said Lee. “‘Exploding Kittens’ was just supposed to be a weekend project in between other projects and has since grown to one of the biggest tabletop games in the world. Despite the size, the entire company is still run by eight people working out of my backyard. Now that our little family has a second child to take care of we’ll probably need a bigger house.”
The company has 840 contractors who help with printing, packing, and distribution of its games. They also get help from indie game-printer Ad Magic and BlackBox, a shipping company from the makers of “Cards Against Humanity.”
Lee says he’s committed to shipping “Bears vs. Babies” by June 2017, after collecting feedback from the community.
“We’ve got some amazing things in store for our backers,” he said. “We’re going to spend the next 26 days hosting one hell of a party, and everyone is invited.”
