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An online game called CryptoKitties has reportedly made more than $12M in sales since launching barely two weeks ago, and one of the two original developers, Jordan Schalm, is from Penticton.

An online game called CryptoKitties that launched barely two weeks ago has taken the internet by storm — and a software engineer from Penticton was one of the original two developers.

Jordan Schalm, 22, is a fourth-year computer engineering student at UBC who works part-time at Axiom Zen, the Vancouver-based company that created CryptoKitties.

"It's basically a simulator, collectibles game, where you can breed your cats and you can unlock different genes and produce interesting-looking cats," Schalm said.

Those cats can be traded as well by users once bred, and users buy and sell with cryptocurrency. The game is built on blockchain technology, ensuring the uniqueness, ownership and persistence of the digital cats.

Since the game went live in the last week of November, sales have topped more than $12M, The Verge reported.

Other outlets, including the BBC, have reported that some cryptokitties have sold for more than $100,000, something Schalm confirmed.

He humbly said that the popularity seen so far for CryptoKitties is above what was expected.

"It was definitely a big surprise, and really exciting too. It's really cool to see a lot of people using something you've made and enjoying it."

Schalm said he and one other engineer began developing the game in August, and said several other engineers were added to the project as it picked up steam.

He said computer engineering has always been of interest to him, and as a high school student in Penticton he did some self-teaching of software development, since classes weren't available.

"I didn't really get into it too much until university though, where I got the chance to take a course."