Magical Athlete

My friends enjoy board games, really, they do. They just have to be: instantly fun, rules so simple that they can be absorbed in a second, and short enough that it’s not too big a commitment. Because of these stringent requirements, it can often be hard to get a board game to the table. If it’s too simple it usually isn’t fun, if the rules are too complicated then nobody can be bothered, and if it takes too long nobody sticks around for the payoff.

In all my collection it’s Herd Mentality, 6-Nimmt, and Just One that have become popular. All incredibly simple, all incredibly easy to play in social situations. Minimal set up and rules. My board gaming white whale, the ideal I have been striving towards, has morphed from the perfect brain burner to the perfect party game. In my admittedly not long years of board gaming I began to realise I don’t want to attain strategic nirvana, I want instantly accessible, easily shareable, laugh out loud fun. I count myself lucky, because as soon as I had this epiphany, Magical Athlete released.

The name itself is an invitation, an instruction, and a prophecy. The theme instantly communicated, the expectations set. It’s going to be magical and it’s going to be a competition, what more could you ask for? The wonderfully zany title is embossed in a striking matte red background. In the foreground we have our athletes. An insane mix of weird characters, all looking like they’ve been plucked from Wacky Racers.

The box instantly demands attention, and it holds it as well. A friend says to me, “Oh so it’s a Mario Kart board game.” Yes, yes it is. It needs no explanation. The box says: these are the racers, now race. Upon opening the box, you get the track and you get the meeples. Thirty-six, to be precise. You also get dice, each of you gets one, which is a nice touch, as it keeps the game moving quickly. We didn’t need the instruction manual, I skimmed the PDF on the way to the pub. It’s a roll and move, so you roll the dice, and then you move. That’s it, those are the rules.

What injects this remarkably simple formula with so much fun is the magical athletes themselves. The only set up this game requires is laying out cards, one for each athlete. On every athlete’s card you can see their unique ability. There is a plethora of abilities in this game, each with wildly different effects and triggers. You participate in four races, one for each of your athletes. Some abilities might seem absurdly powerful on paper, you’ll probably want to save these till the last race, as each race has more points on offer than the last. However, there are some strange abilities distributed amongst all the characters, and some can hard-counter others, you never know what other players have up their sleeve. There’s one character, M.O.U.T.H, that can eat other racers and eliminate them from the race entirely.

Having four different races means that even if the dice are unkind, or you end up being on the receiving end of an offensive ability, maybe you get eaten by M.O.U.T.H, you won’t be out for long. In the few minutes you’re not directly playing, watching the carnage and the schadenfreude it supplies you is brilliantly petty. Then it’s on to the next race, which will unfold completely differently, everyone will have brand new abilities, and the board will flip. There are two different tracks, Mild Mile and Wild Wilds.

Some might be reading and thinking that it all sounds too simple, roll and move and use an ability, is that it? The game is so brilliantly designed, and the abilities are so varied, that one simple movement can set off hilarious chain reactions, the running order can flip in an instant. The pure chaos and short races mean that everyone is always included in the action, and everyone has a chance of winning up until the finish line. The chain reactions create fantastic moments of petty revenge, short-lived glory, or stunning comebacks. The player interaction this facilitates is incredible. My friend who pointed out that it is a “Mario Kart board game” had it spot on, it’s a kart racing game in board game form, blue shells and all.

After we finished our first game, we were awed by the idea of replaying it, we realised we had only used four racers, a mere 11% of the roster. Having a team of four out of a possible thirty-six means there are 58,905 combinations of teams you could have, and if you were playing with the maximum six players, there are 1,947,792 combinations of racers in any given race. You’re never going to have the same team or the same race twice. As soon as we finished our first game, we went straight back in for another.

Nobody cared about winning, everyone just wanted to experience the chaos again, and that is a beautiful thing. It can be so easy to get caught up on victory, but in Magical Athlete I can feel my (sometimes overcooked) competitive spirit take a back seat and I just revel in the insane situations this game provides. The best thing was that as much as the casual gamers loved it, so did the hardy wargame veterans, and the random abilities and luck for the dice meant it was an even playing field, everyone had a chance of victory.

To some that might be a drawback, maybe the group wants a game where they can plot war against each other, to prove their superior strategic mind, to win using skill instead of luck. For those groups I would say Magical Athlete might fall short. All the abilities and all the dice rolls mean your plans can quickly fall apart. One of my first races I was next to somebody who had an ability to skip to their turn if anybody rolled a one. We rolled quite a lot of ones, so the turn order kept resetting back to him and I didn’t get many turns. It was hilarious, and I still didn’t come last, but I can see that being frustrating for someone who wants to outthink their opponents. There is also a chance that the luck never swings your way, you are ultimately at the mercy of the dice and the random abilities of the other racers. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of this bad luck is mitigated by short and numerous rounds. In my experience, though, Lady Luck is ultimately fair and for every unlucky race you have, you will have a lucky one.

The way the races work, the zany artwork, and the instantly accessible rules means that Magical Athlete is arguably the perfect party game. Everyone understands what racing is, everyone knows how to roll a die. The artwork is reminiscent of childhood cartoons, so it is a comfortable and inviting game. All ages can play it, all types of board gamers, from veterans of Twilight Imperium to those who think board games = Monopoly. I would struggle to find someone who didn’t understand and enjoy it and for that reason I think it’s the perfect party game. In the modern board game world full of deep mechanics and lengthy play times, it’s nice to play a game where me and my friends can throw dice and scream.