Magical Athlete

In Magical Athlete 2-6 players race around a board of 30 spaces, rolling a die each turn to see how far they move. The first and second players to cross the finish line win points, and after a set number of races, an overall winner is declared. So far, so dull. In practice, however, the game is a riotous affair, with a cocktail of different characters producing a huge amount of variety, unexpected results and the occasional infinite loop.

The game begins with players [simple_tooltip content=’Drafting is when players take turns selecting a card from an available pool – the remainder being available for the other players.’]drafting[/simple_tooltip] cards, each of which represents a race participant with their own special abilities, each with a unique effect on the game. By the end of the draft, which is cleverly designed so that everyone gets a share of powerful and esoteric characters, each player will have 4 racers, and the races can begin.

Each player secretly selects a character from their hand to play in a race – later races are worth more points, so you may choose to keep your ‘best’ – although it can be hard to say which is best! – racer for a grand final, and play your less exciting one – although they may surprise you – in an early race. Racers are lined up on the start line, and the dice-rolling begins.

The races themselves take maybe 5 minutes – there’s a lot of fun to be had in seeing how the different characters interact, and although one character might seem to run way ahead, there is likely to be another racer who can bring them back, or swap places with them, and most races are tightly fought, with flip-flopping positions as various special abilities kick in. Whilst the Centaur kicks anyone theuy pass back two spaces, the Slowcoach gets points for being at the back and the unpredictable Egg can choose a special power from three characters drawn from the leftover cards. On races 2 and 4, the reverse side of the board is employed with its unique spaces on the track (move forward/move back/get a point/fall over). After the fourth race is over, the player with most points is the winner.