Cowabunga is a saying, yes, and also a cattle-themed surfing card game. The goal is simple – to wipe out the least!
The execution is more difficult, and requires a combination of luck, memory, and mental math. The whole game revolves, unsurprisingly, around a wave, the height of which is altered by player actions. Each turn, you’ll play a Wave Card, adding to the wave height when the wave is rising, and subtracting when it falls. But be careful! There are also Obstacle Cards, numbered ten through thirty, and if the sum (or difference) of your play equals an opponent’s Obstacle, you wipe out! You’re not out of a game, but you do have to take a Cow Pawn.
That said, you do have one advantage – you get to see the Obstacle Cards when your opponents first draw them. You then have to remember which numbers they are, and hope your Wave Cards grant you the option of avoiding them. This is further complicated as the game goes on, because whenever someone takes the wave to higher than thirty, or lower than ten, not only does the direction flip, but the player to their right draws another Obstacle. In other words, if you’re the one to cross that threshold, the surf just got more hazardous for you.
Especially in a two-player game, you can reach a truly impressive number of Obstacles to remember. I think I had to avoid twelve numbers, the last time we played. Regardless of the number of players, the game ends when someone reaches four Cow Pawns or the last Obstacle Card is drawn. And as I said earlier, the player who wiped out the least wins!
