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Don't Kill the Cow

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A simple sidescrolling critical game that questions the importance of goals and authority in games. There is only one way to win the game: dont kill the cow, but is winning the game worth it? How much do the simple phrases like you win and you lose mean to the player?

Game 3 of 100 in 5 years.

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Years later and I'm still mad about this woman living on a fucking corn farm and being allergic to corn.

Very good "art" game.

Does not load/work

If I was to get a meaning from this game, it would be about the meaning of ethics.

The man doesn't want to hurt his animals, refusing to kill any animal for any reason, but the wife needs to eat and cannot eat what he has farmer. In the end, the man can 'win' by staying by his ethics, but let his wife die. Or he can 'lose' by killing the cow, and the wife lives.

So the choice is basically; so you stand by your ethics or are you a slave to them. Are you willing to go against them to help the ones you love, or will you let them perish just because you won't budge? In a sense, it doesn't say ethics are bad, but it does point out how easily people can be overtaken by them. Willing to sacrifice something greater just to keep them.

TL;DR version:
-Half-star for admitting that there's nothing more than the choice of killing the cow or not.
-There is no critical thinking; morality, or anything else to do with the game.

I honestly can't fathom why the effort was made to create this game and then port it to Flash, nor do I understand why it's managed to get multiple star reviews(Both here and on the site where it seems the original downloadable version is located).

The half star is merely for being honest in what the game was, I truthfully expected something deeper at work here but that's my fault and the only reason this isn't getting a 0 star rating.

To save anyone time, game works like this:
Decide to kill the cow or not.
If you kill the cow: Get shown a screen of you and the wife at the dinner table with the words, "You Lose".
Don't kill the cow: Wife complains that she's hungry/starving and dies between day six and seven. Shown a screen of the wife's grave with the farmer and cow with the words, "You Win."
Kill cow on day seven: Eat meat on your own. Couldn't be arsed to see this personally, going by a review on the original DL site(Google it if you want for some reason).

The idea that this is some way to attempt an insight on a gamer's view of winning or losing is absolutely inane. There's barely any more thought to this than a simple flash "game" that boasts a big red button that says, "Don't CLICK!" and gives you a screen telling you that you lose if you click it.

Hell, only thing this game did was make me actually make a login here, to give this "game" an appropriate rating and have to write out a review about it so it isn't merely construed as trollish. Well, that and waste a few minutes of my life that I'd much rather have back.

Credits & Info

Views
16,741
Faves:
17
Votes
33
Score
3.61 / 5.00

Uploaded
Jul 30, 2013
12:18 AM EDT