Lately when I attend PAX West, I have been noticing the presence of more and more Polish game developers, especially with regard to indie titles. Earlier I tried out Observer by Bloober Games, which is a Polish team. But I generally prefer platforming to horror, so it didn’t take much to convince me to play a game with as crazy a title as Space Cows.
Developed by Polish team Happy Corruption and published by Walkabout Games, Space Cows answers the question nobody thought to ask – what would happen to our cows in space? Honestly, I don’t know what the plot of the game really is, and it doesn’t really matter. The whole point of a game like this is to be entertaining and different, and Space Cows has that in spades.
In the demo I played a lone astronaut armed with a plunger. Since the game takes place on a space station, they play with zero gravity. This means momentum plays a huge role, and the game controls a lot as if I was underwater. You can easily wobble into danger, and all you have to thwart it is a stern plunging. Luckily, this plunger works a bit like a boomerang, and returns to you after you hurl it at alien menaces. Besides cleaning up after extraterrestrial scum, you also are tasked with finding and getting cows in space suits to safety. After this, a minigame is initiated where you milk the cows to the left or right of the screen, coupled with delightfully creepy art reminiscent of Ren & Stimpy. I’m not sure if succeeding or failing at the mini game has any real consequences, but it was entertaining.
Other than that, most of the demo was me getting used to the controls. They work once you have the hang of them, but there’s lots of traps ready to take you down, from vents of open flame to spiky aliens. Put simply, this is a basic yet challenging platformer. I asked the devs about how long of a game it might be, and they estimated 2-3 hours. But after my many deaths, I think that 5-8 hours might be closer to the mark for the average gamer. Overall, I enjoyed my time with Space Cows, and think it should be an entertaining platformer when it releases in the coming months. It’s slated to be playable on Steam and all consoles.
