Unexploded Cow

Complexity Low Cost £5 Duration Medium Players 3-6 Producer Cheapass Games Size Small

Premise

Defuse unexploded bombs in France with mad English cows

Review

This rather daft game is actually much more cunning and deep than it first appears. The premise of the game, albeit farfetched, is very simple. Bombs in farmer's fields in France, and a load of mad cows from England.

The game is played for money. Each player is given $2000, some of which is given to the Bank for a prize pot. The rest is spent by the player to play cards (or to pay for cards played on them).

In their turn, each player turns over a city card if needed. This card has a variable number of victory points on it (1-12). At the end of the game, the person with the highest victory points takes the Bank prize pot. The game ends when the last city card is won.

Each player draws two "cow" cards, and then plays as many as they like. Each card costs a variable amount of money. Any money spent goes into the normal pot. When you explode a cow and find a bomb, you get the cow's value from the pot. Simple eh?

Well not quite. Firstly, the game is a closed system. The only money that you can win is either in the pot, or in the players' possession, so if you win $500 and the pot only has $50, you get $50 - a waste of a fine set of cows! So one aspect of the game is manipulating the pot to ensure that there is some money to win. There are also negative value cows that cost you money when you explode them, spy cows which make money for their original owners etc. Your cows can also explode on other players' turns because of the selection method. At the end of each turn the player rolls a die, and starting with their rightmost cow, counts left around the table to find the cow that explodes.

The various event cards also add the usual hilarity to the game, including the means to get rid of useless cows, or to steal whole hands etc.

My only real gripes are that the rules for the special ability cows could be clearer. It's not immediately obvious how they work. Nevertheless you do get a proper box. You will need to supply your own money and a die.

Rating

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