Normally I’m not big on charitable tie-ins with games. It’s not because I hate charity, or am opposed to helping a good cause. It’s just because so many of them feel, I don’t know… kinda skeezy, I guess. Like they’re just looking to use their charitable affiliation to get their game coverage, and don’t actually care so much about the cause they’re affiliated with. But that’s not the case with Udder Panic (Free), a game released yesterday from a developer whom I trust and that affiliates itself with a charitable cause in a really clever way.
Udder Panic is the new game from JB Games, who you may remember from the humorous RPG Beast Bound (Free). In it you play as an alien who invades Earth in order to abduct as many cows as possible. Touching the screen enables your tractor beam to suck up cows, but you’ll want to be careful to avoid sucking up bulls and government agents who are unconvincingly dressed up as cows. Each game starts with an energy meter at the top ticking down, with every cow successfully abducted contributing to the time on the meter, and every bull or agent abducted subtracting from the time. The action speeds up as you go and it can get quite frantic.
There are also golden cows every so often, and this is where the charity affiliation fits in. JB Games has partnered with Make-A-Wish Nebraska, which is the state where the developer is based, so that for every million golden cows that get abducted total across the globe JB Games will grant a kid’s wish. It’s a really nice idea, but unfortunately it’s not off to the hottest of starts. At the time of this writing the Golden Cow Cow-nter, which you can track for yourself on the game’s website, is only at 544 out of a million. So, a ways to go, then! But it’s doable and it’s only been a day so far.
Besides the warm fuzzies you get from helping contribute to Make-A-Wish, Udder Panic is also a pretty fun single-touch high score chaser. My favorite part is the crazy number of unlockable characters and UFOs in the game, and if you were a fan of the wacky humor in Beast Bound then you should be plenty pleased here. Udder Panic is free, and uses the now-common Crossy Road method of monetization, which consists of opt-in ads to earn coins and/or unlocking characters early for 99¢ each (rather than unlocking them randomly by using coins). So give it a shot, suck up some cows, and drop by the forums for some discussion with the developers and the community.
