Cosmic Cow Collectors – Comedic Card Craftiness!

Are aliens real? Do they abduct people? Regardless of how you feel about this oft-debated topic, in this review we look at a game where you get to be those aliens. Yep, in Cosmic Cow Collectors you get to make abductions. Of cows. Because in this universe, cows are the most precious resource. Forget abducting humans.

Cosmic Cow Collectors is a quirky little game for 2-4 players aged ten and up from Detestable Games. A game takes about twenty minutes.

Setup

The setup is simple. Each player gets a ship board, two cow tokens, and an alien token. Shuffle the deck of planet cards and deal four cards to each player. Every planet card has a number value on the bottom right of the card that represents the maximum number of cows you can take every time you select the abduction action.

Each player chooses one of their four planets to set aside as their secret base, keeping all four planets face down. Players put one of their cow tokens on the spot marked 10 on their ship board.

Game Play

Now you and your ten cows are ready! Choose one of three actions shown on your ship board: You can abduct cows, try to invade other planets, or explore. Move your alien token to the specific action. Next turn, you’ll have to choose one of the other actions.

When abducting cows, choose and declare a number equal to or less than the number on the bottom corner of your secret base. Advance the cow token on your ship board by the number you declared and one more per planet you have invaded.

Speaking of invading, you can also choose to try to figure out and invade your opponents’ secret bases. Maybe there are more, or better, cows there! Pick another player and guess what number is on their secret base. If you are right the base becomes yours and they lose five cows.

Whether you are successful or not, you can try again! In a two-player game, you have two invasion attempts per turn. In a 3- or 4-player game, you get three attempts but you can only try twice against the same player in the same turn.

If all three invasion attempts are unsuccessful you lose three cows.

When you explore you draw the top card from the planet deck. You can use this chance to abandon your favorite planet for greener pastures. To do this, you give your current base to another player of your choice and replace it with a new one from your hand.

The End

This cosmic bovine battle can end one of two ways. The deck of planets runs out leaving nowhere left to explore or a player reaches 120 or more cows. It is an immediate end, but not all is lost. You may earn more cows with the end-game bonuses for how many planets you have invaded and which planets you have in your hand and as a secret base.

Impressions

The art in Cosmic Cow Collectors is very light-hearted sci-fi. We found this helped make the game more appealing to those who wouldn’t normally pick up a game with a large number grid on it.

The symbology is also great. Once players learned the rules, the shipboard handled the score (in cows), the action tracker, and reminders of the action details without language skills.

We feel like this game would be great for game schooling or just sneaking in practice with children that need a little more math time.

The art and components were great to look at and fun to play with. Of course, a fidgety child might pick up and play with a cow, making it hard to track count on the ship board.

There’s not much to the game though. This game will probably not be satisfying with two players if your children game frequently. But there are many games that are quite popular now that fit this description. Gameplay is much more dynamic when you play with three or four players.

Final Thoughts

Cosmic Cow Collectors is a quick 20-minute play that is super thematic and looks cute. It does offer some strategy in terms of varying how many cows you abduct as you try to hide the true value of your secret base planet.

However, if your children have grown up around board games, they might have a hard time staying interested in Cosmic Cow Collectors over multiple plays. My oldest enjoyed the game when he first played it, but his interest has diminished with each successive playthrough.

If you’re looking a for a quick game that still has a little more depth, Cosmic Cow Collectors has a quirky charm thanks to its theme and production.

You can find Cosmic Cow Collectors on Amazon or at your friendly local game store.

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Draco Studios provided The Family Gamers with a promotional copy of Cosmic Cow Collectors for this review.

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