Cow Tiger Santa Claus strikes out for me again

As I’ve mentioned, I made a copy of Cow, Tiger, Santa Claus in preparation for driving across the country. And I actually remembered the deck and dealt out a three-card hand on a couple days of the trip.

And I have to say I wasn’t able to actually score any cards during our trip!

To be fair, I did see things that were on cards I hadn’t drawn. Like the cows that are in the actual name of the game. I would have thought highway driving, with all the billboards involved, would have worked well but it didn’t.

Cow, Tiger, Santa Claus takes the idea of Road Bingo and turns it into a deck of fifteen cards. There are three levels of difficulty with fife cards each. Randomly draw a card from each level and get to looking.

My initial plays of it were in desert scrubland so I wasn’t surprised it didn’t go well. I had been hoping to pass interesting trucks since I knew that would be the only way I’d see any of the cards.

I’m playing the game in the United States and I wonder how well it would work in other countries. I also wonder where the game was developed. (Part of me imagines it was in the Wisconsin Dells lol)

Despite having had every game I’ve played of Cow, Tiger, Santa Claus fizzle, I do like it and tje idea of it. I don’t really think of it as a game but a reason to look around and pay attention.

Making a game for road trips

Many of my print-and-play projects over the last few weeks have been ButtonShy games. I've taken advantage of them offering their wallet games as PDF files and I'm curious how much business they get from folks like me. 

Cow Tiger Santa Claus was a file that I picked up but I really didn't think I would ever really use. But as our son has gotten older and we've talked about road trips, I decided that it was time to make a copy to live in the glove compartment.

Basically, it's Road Trip bingo as a small deck of cards. Really, that's it. On the down side, you have a smaller pool of things to look for. On the plus side, it's easier to physically juggle and each game is going to be more different.

Cow Tiger Santa Claus consists of fifteen cards that have images of things you might see while you're on the road. Cows, helicopters, Santa Claus, etc. It's also broken down into easy, moderate and hard categories. 

When you start the trip, draw a card from each category. Whoever spots that item first gets the card as a point. Whoever ends the trip with the most cards is the winner. And it'd be easier to house rule the game with more cards for longer trips or only letting the little ones claim the easy cards.

Look, this is a super slight game. And it has some clear disadvantages for us, since most of the road trips we have planned for the near future are on the same stretch, meaning we will get to know the advertisements and shops and such. This might not be the best game for the Arizona desert, although it does bring back memories of Midwest family vacations.

But, to be fair, it does what it sets out to do perfectly well. It's a way to keep folks occupied on road trips. Simpler than even tic tac toe, Cow Tiger Santa Claus isn't even what I would call a filler. I wouldn't play it while waiting for food to arrive. But I can see it played on a road trip.

Our favorite road trip game has been the license plate game. (And isn't it sweet to be the one who sees a Hawaii plate?) And I will say that it's dependent on who's on the road as oppose to where you're driving.

But Cow Tiger Santa Claus will make for a change of pace, be easier for younger players and we could always play both games at the time. And it has you admire the scenery.

Cow Tiger Santa Claus isn't really like any of my other crafting projects. I mean, this isn't the kind of game I seek out or really play. But it has a place in our glove box.