Review – Magical Athlete

Magical Athlete is a wacky roll-and-move game, originally published by Z-Man Games in 2003. Now, in 2025, it is back in an all-new edition from CMYK, with additional development from Richard Garfield. How does this game hold up today? Can a roll-and-move game possibly be good? Let’s find out!

Review

The announcement of a new version of Magical Athlete was like a dream come true. I had wanted to try this game ever since I first heard about it 15+ years ago, but I never had the chance due to the game’s rarity and price.

Finally, after more than 2 decades of cult-classic status, this game, which had long been whispered about in hush tones, is back in print.

Magical Athlete is the most basic of games. It’s literally a roll-and-move game (yes, you read that right) where players race to cross the finish line first. That’s it. That’s the game.

Or, it would be, if it wasn’t for each player’s unique ability.

This game takes a page from Cosmic Encounter‘s design ethos. Like that game, Magical Athlete is built on the principle that if every player has an ability that is super broken and overpowered, then the game is balanced.

Magical Athlete is played over 4 races, and players use different competitors each go-round. Before the game begins, they draft 4 character cards each, and they will use 1 per race.

A player’s turn consists of rolling a die and moving that many spaces. What makes this game work, however, are all the wild, unpredictable interactions that happen between characters. Players will be switching places, tripping each other, blocking spaces, eating other players, warping around the board, moving on opponents’ turns, and all manner of other crazy shenanigans. It’s absolute mayhem.

The first 2 players to brawl their way to the finish line are awarded 1st and 2nd place trophies (there is no 3rd place). As soon as 2 characters finish, the race ends. Players then clear the board, discard the characters they used, and select new ones for the next race.

Often, players will want to flip the board in between races. The basic side, “Mild Mile,” is just a normal racetrack with no funny business. The back-side, “Wild Wilds,” is full of funny business, with spaces that trip, move racers forward/backward, and award point tokens.

At the end of 4 races, the player who has earned the most points wins!

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Magical Athlete defies expectations. By all accounts, this game should be terrible — it’s a chaotic, roll-and-move dice-fest, with next to no strategy, where you can lose turns and even get eliminated. It sounds like everything gamers hate… and yet, against all odds, Magical Athlete is a BLAST. It’s a perfect storm of insanity, and the experience of playing it is totally unforgettable. Let me describe a scenario my group experienced in a recent race:

It was a 5-player game, and we were all near the end of the track. Mike’s power caused Steve to cross the finish line, and John used his power to hitch a ride across the line with Steve. Normally, this would mean that John came in second, but my power had allowed me to predict who would win, and if correct, I would come in second. Since I had correctly predicted that Steve would win, it came down to a matter of timing. My power triggered before John’s, so the end result was that Mike caused Steve to win and I stole second place from John.

This kind of weird and wild interaction is par for the course in this game, and with near-limitless character combinations, every race will play out drastically differently.

The production of this game is exceptional, with Yellow Submarine-style art that is a perfect fit for the zany gameplay. The character pieces look great, my favorite being Huge Baby, which, humorously, is 3x as thick as all the other characters. Naturally, the rules couldn’t possibly cover every bizarre edge case that might arise, but they provide language that helps players navigate weird situations. (And if players truly can’t decide how to resolve something, they can either roll off for it or just make something up.)

Bottom line, Magical Athlete is a slam dunk. It’s my favorite game of 2025, and I am so glad to see this long-gone gem revived. Highly recommended.

A review copy was provided by CMYK.