Udder Insanity (the bad game)

The udder insanity game is a game that I came across in a seminar. We had to find a bad online game and this was the one that we found. I decided to reuse this game because it is a perfect example of what an unsuccessful game looks like.

Like any online game the main concept of the game is simple, though it is a little bit unusual but there is such a vast amount of online games I guess that some games are going to be out of the ordinary. The main aim is to simply milk the cows before they explode. The main concept is all simple enough but there are points of the game that I do not understand and made it the game more confusing rather then fun.

When I first loaded the game I didn't know what to expect, and that continued until I started playing the game as there were no instructions leaving me to work out how to use the game myself; it was easy to work out but some basic instructions would have helped. What was fairly off putting was the minors rules that were put in place. The player had to milk each cow before they exploded and when the bucket was full then you had to go empty it however, what I didn't realise until later was that when the people in the background of the game ran across the screen then you had to go fire a gun shot. In the first few goes I didn't even realise that they were in game play and thought that it was part of the game design.

The graphics are fairly simple but are quite humorous in parts of the game (when the cow explodes) and the design is complimented but the simple sounds that have been used. There is no background music just some sound effects when the player milks the cow.

The confusing part about the game was the general pointing and timing system. From playing I'm guessing that the days are the levels and every level you go up you get an extra cow added although, what confused me was that there was no amount of time shown whilst in play, this meant that I did not know how long the game took. And when it came to the end I even found the pointing system confusing. Just guessing I assume that you start with eight lives and every cow that dies is a life, so you could lose three or four live in one round; the amount of cows remaining makes up the points, or in this game makes more money.

In my opinion I feel that the game has got a simple game concept but its ruined by the unneeded pieces of added criteria that makes it more confusing for the player. When playing the game I got more frustrated about not knowing what to do and so, put me of the game entirely. If I was to make suggestions to improve the game then I would definitely stick to the simple aim and that is to milk the cows before they explode; taking out the extra bit i.e. the running people and gun shooting. I feel that adding simple instructions, a timer and easy point system would get more users interested. The main point of the game I feel is funny and will amuse people but this won't happen until the game is changed to a more user friendly game.