Lowell Kempf
United States
Chicago
Illinois
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Cosmic Cows is Yahtzee with plastic cows and a space alien theme. Let’s get that part out of the way first, shall we? No matter how you try to look at it, that is what this game is. If you are not looking for a Yahtzee style dice game and if you have no interest in plastic cows, this game is not going to work for you. That’s just the way it is.
If you start rooting through the family trees of dice games, you will often find Yahtzee or 10,000 somewhere. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it is something that you just have to get used to. The real question is not “Is this a Yahtzee clone?” but “Have they used Yahtzee in a way that’s interesting?”
Cosmic Cows is a two-player game in which players slip into the tentacles and bug-eyes of aliens who are trying to capture three cows in their tractor beams before the other guy. You have a board, which shows a series of tracks marked by dice combinations. You get a bunch of plastic cows that you’re going to place on those tracks. And each player gets five six-sided dice.
One thing you don’t get is a stack of scoring sheets and a bunch of pencils. The board will take care of all that. That might not sound like much but I like not having to worry about running out of sheets or keeping pencils sharpened.
On your turn, you roll your dice, getting to reroll any or all twice. You then use those dice to match the dice combinations on the tracks to pull the cow on the track towards you. Get three cows into your zone and you win and honor and glory are yours until the next game.
Boom ba-da boom. That’s the game.
So, what does Cosmic Cows got going for it that would make you play it rather than any number of other dice games?
First off, tug-of-war. This is a game of tug-of-war. You’re pulling cows back and forth between the two of you. Yahtzee is, as a rule, a multi-player solitaire game. Cosmic Cows is actually about conflict. That’s actually a nice twist and gives you a reason to pay attention to another player’s turn.
Second and most of all, toy factor. You get a bunch of plastic cows. Cute plastic cows! Moo! Moo!
Seriously, the biggest reason to get this game is those cows. Those little black and white cows will draw in the most staunch non-gamer.
Why might you not want to this game?
It is light. It is very light. The luck of the dice totally determines your moves and, while those two rerolls mean you get some control, we’re still talking dice. The luckier player is going to win a good chunk of the time. You get more choices than you do in LCR but we are still not talking rocket science.
Cosmic Cows is a filler and way to waste time with plastic cows, albeit really neat plastic cows. In fact, most of my games were played while waiting for food at restaurants.
The last thing I have to say is that people have actually requested this game. It is silly and it is pretty mindless but it does make it onto the table.
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