https://youtu.be/x-AHhW4lQbQ
"Cow tipping is the activity of sneaking up on any unsuspecting or sleeping upright cow and pushing it over for entertainment.

+ A bit comedic that someone would even make a game about this, and if you find pushing over cows to be amusing than perhaps you will get a good laugh or two.
+ Visually the game looks quite nice with a pretty atmospheric night time farm setting. (Would have been great for a horror game)

- The gameplay is extremely repetitive. You just run around the field pushing over cows, and each level you must push over more cows....... yeah.... that's about it...
- No sense of challenge or difficulty. A dog runs after you, but if you sprint you are faster than the dog so there's really no danger.
- There's really just not enough going on in this game / limited content. Expect to play it for around 5mins or so.

One of my viewers asked me to try this game out so I said sure, why not. Installed fast and booted it up after watching the trailer.

Level 1. Had good ambience, looked pretty good for a $4 game. Was creeped out a bit as I figured out what I was doing. Got into a paddock, shoved a cow over. Did it four more times and the level ended.

Level 2. Knock over a couple more in the same paddock. Okay I guess? Cows are in the same places. Oh a dog that I can outrun and I have no stamina.

Level 3: Knock over a couple more???

Level 6-8?: Oh there is a pig that chases me around outside the paddocks now.

Level 10: I'm literally just doing the same thing over and over and over again.

If this was someone's first venture into game making and it was free, then I would be a bit impressed. Alas, I spent $4 on this and must rate it as something I would expect out of a $4 game, which isn't much, and this just doesn't cut it. You literally see all the game mechanics on the very first level. I didn't play past Level 10, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Don't buy this game for $4. I would even have a hard time justifying spending $0.50 on it.

What can I say about this game. To be honest, I am really sad writing this review the way I will, because this is the first game I've ever received a free key for, and I was super excited about that. However, no matter how I turn and twist this game, I can not figure out a way to review this game and actually recommend for anyone to buy it.

Basically, The Cows Are Watching, is a cow tipping simulator with little to no variation. It's a constant chase scene that varies between being chased by a dog and a boar - depending on whether you're inside a meadow or on the path. You get 4 different meadows that each lead to an area filled with cows and a very slow guard dog. Your task: Enter each of the meadows and tip the required amount of cows over within the time limit without being caught by one of the animals.

Never minding the impossibility of the idea of tipping a cow while running past it and slightly pushing it while running away from a dog, there is absolutely no variation in this game. Each of the meadows has the exact same colored cows in them, each of the dogs looks, sounds and acts exactly the same and the pig spawns in the same positions each round. There is no randomization of the cows' positions, and you basically do the exact same thing in the exact same order each round, adding a few cows to tip every time.

The horror element of the game is completely missing - while basically presenting you with the scenario of a permanent chase scene and the occasional quick scare from being caught by a dog, the game isn't scary at all. The flashlight does very little to counter the extreme darkness and the brightness has to be maximized to actually see what you're doing.

Unfortunately for the game, the element of humor that might have saved it from a 1-star review and a thumbs down on steam, is also undiscoverable. While the game presents a short period of amusement during its first levels, that initial comic impression quickly transforms into frustration and even boredom.

To sum it up: Sadly one of the worst games I have ever played, and - even worse - way overprized.

If you're interested, here's a link to my full playthrough on YouTube (Link to Playlist): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYzlb9Rw0iBShA1Ddk7fF8-aQGpdfmJVM

https://youtu.be/qj4kXoJZxJo

I played this game for an entire hour hoping that there would be some pay off to the repetitive nature of it. I guess it's tough to expect much of a 5$ indie game (Note: I got the key for this game free to try out). It has a few funny moments when you first start playing, however it becomes repetitive instantly since all the "levels" are just adding more cows that need tipping without changing the layout of the cows or the setting itself. If there was more variety to the stages or surprises thrown in that catch the player off guard, it could have been interesting.

Also thematically I'm not sure what the game was going for. It uses funny pictures and ideas as it's premise, but then uses scary background music, and sad music each time you finish a stage. It added to the confusion and initial comedy factor but by the end, I was just drained and wanting my hour back.

I would not recommend this for the 5$ entry.

The Cows Are Watching is a very simple cow tipping simulator where you wander around a field full of stock Unity assets and tip stock Unity cows. There's a VR mode which doesn't really improve things. The develpopers had deep enough pockets to buy reasonable Unity assets so the game doesn't look terrible, there's 4K support but not much in the way of graphics tweaks. It's visually okay enough thanks to someone else's game assets that it gets a pass on visuals.

The only real technical issue is that the controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers.

These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.

The poor quality of this game is reflected in the general public reception. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 3 players. That's right, only 3. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 50,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in the game is to be expected. Gamers just didn't take this low quality game seriously, and for good reason.

The Cows Are Watching has the pathetically optimistic price of around $4 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam.

One final note: Because this is more of a "joke" game, intended to draw attention from controversy or in the hopes of going viral because it's "so bad it's good" (but it isn't good at all), there's nothing here to offer to serious gamers. As usual, with most awful/joke games, all the comedians come out of the woodwork. The vast majority of the reviews for this game are joke reviews, such as "this game cured my cancer, saved my marriage, changed my life" etc. Because most of the reviews are as insincere as the game itself is, the positive review score for this game should be disregarded.