Cash Cow

I am currently going through a rather stressful time in my life due to close family being in and out of hospitals  due to serious illnesses.  If you are like me, the hardest thing to do sometimes is to sit helpless in a hospital room for hours on end (the clocks in hospital waiting rooms seem to have 48 hours on them – and that can be just from breakfast until lunch at times….).  When forced to endure those endless hours it is great to have something to distract you and assist in time going by more swiftly.  My recent game of choice to help with that endeavor is Cash Cow from Chillingo.

While I had not encountered the game until I got it for my iPhone, it has actually been out for some time for the PC as well as many other handheld devices for quite some time and is very popular with gamers who enjoy the matching type games in the same genre as Bejeweled.  It is so popular that it has enjoyed over 1.5 million downloads in other platforms.  Unlike Bejeweled, however, the game design actually can be used to teach children the monetary system by forcing them to not just blindly match three (or more) identical items but rather select different denomination coins in order to equal a coin of a larger denomination or even a dollar.  Doing this results in monetary rewards which can then be used to purchase upgrades for your farm.

One of the features that keeps this game from becoming monotonous is the humor built into the game (for example the coins that you use to match up have been accumulated by the Cash Cow by him accumulating coins during cow tipping.  (If you have never been cow tipping you need to find someone that can teach you how to sneak up on a sleeping cow (they sleep standing up) and tip them over.  It is second only to snipe hunting when it comes to initiation rites used by local Boy Scout troops during their camping trips….)

To get back to the game, accumulating the required amount of currency is kept from getting monotonous by the fact that the game not only has five different game modes but things are made even more interesting and challenging by the inclusion of counterfeit money, gold nuggets, power ups, and other surprises.

All in all, I think Cash Cow will be one game that stays on my iPhone.  It is easy to play but requires just enough of a mental challenge that you don’t fall asleep while  mindlessly matching three red balls or yellow gems.

Cash Cow is available from the App Store for $0.99.  I think it is well worth the price but, if you want to take it for a test drive first, there is a free “lite” version as well.