Developer: Anders Carlsson
Genre: Bovine Strategy
Platform: Spectrum 48K
Language: BASIC

In 2006 Anders introduced us to Volos - the ancient Slavic god of cattle (among other things, apparently.) With only one cow, a bull and a poorly rendered hole in the ground, he challenged our very perception of what Bovine-themed games could achieve!

Using the same cow Moo-DGs in 2011 he released a 'sequel' in which the now named; Cowthilde (and friends) sang tunelessly at you and expected you to reciprocate.

Then one year later, with Volos back in a starring role, came Rescuow in which Cowthilde ferries stickmen from one side of the screen to the other whilst avoiding vertical attacks from said villainous bull.

Confusingly then, as you might expect from those familiar Cow-DGs (Stop that - Ed,) Battle Cows is not part 4 of the Volos series*.

* I mean, really Anders, how easy would it to have been to make it Part 4 by simply including a reference to Volos in the instructions?

And so, on that anti-climactic note, let's find out what Battle Cows is about.

The game takes place on a 7x7 grid labelled A-G horizontally and 1-7 vertically and, at the start of the game, each player has 7 cows in columns A and G.

Each player takes it in turns to either (M)oo-ve, (B)oost (upgrade) or (A)ttack a cow on a given row. An (A)ttack can only be carried out if your cow is standing next to an opponent's cow on the same row and a (B)oost increases a cow's chances of winning during an (A)ttack.

As the game progresses you also have 5 'spare' cows to (I)nsert on a row in which your previous cow has been defeated. And, if you're unable to (M)ove, (B)oost, (A)ttack or (I)nsert, then your only option is to skip your go by pressing (N.)

In fact, when you've got to the stage pictured here it's only possible for both P1 and P2 to hit (N) which promptly ends the game and displays the scores.

2UP

One thing to note is that there's no Computer AI here - you either need to find another human being who wants to play crap games or play with yourself. (Chortle - Ed.)

I'm sure, if you can find such a person, then there are literally minutes of fun to be had with this. I asked Mrs P, however, and her response was; "Cows? Eh? Have you put the bins out yet, or what!?"

Unfortunately I really can't trust me not to cheat and, as demonstrated here, I udderly trounced myself! (Just get your coat and leave - Ed.)