On the 20th and 27th of August, I organized a couple of playthroughs of Olympus Races in the ABC-house. Here’s how it went.

The ABC-house is a cultural center in Brussels, whose aim is to connect kids with the world of arts and instigate social awareness and civic responsibility. The organization is located in a beautifully-renovated old factory, organized around a giant library and workshop spaces, and run by a team of amazing people who always come up with creative ways of bringing culture and kids together. Part of their 2021 summer program, ABC organized two Greek-weeks, a series of workshops focused on Greek philosophy, anthropology, art and archaeology. 

Naturally, I was really excited to be a part of this, so I proposed a couple of playthroughs of Olympus Races with some of the older kids (ages 11-12). The challenge was that the kids were all from the Flemish community, with Dutch as their main language. I myself speak only a couple of words in Dutch, and as the game itself is in English, I had to come up with a different set of rules to overcome the language barrier. This turned out to be a very interesting exercise, and I was happy to discover that the game is so flexible that it can accommodate any kind of audience while keeping the high level of fun!

A new gameplay variant :

– The kids played in teams of two, to shorten the game’s duration and encourage cooperation.

– I removed all the specific powers (Temple cards) of the Gods and Goddesses, but kept the immunities to give players a feeling of ‘ownership’ over their own Territory.

– I removed some of the more difficult or complex Pantheon cards in the game and kept those with straightforward effects.

– I became the game-master, responsible for all Pantheon cards. So, whenever one of the players would draw a Pantheon card, I would instead flip over the top card from the deck, explain its effect and give the player the choice on how and when to use it. 

With all these alternative rules in place, the game moved at a quick pace and the kids got into it 100%!  

As it turned out, most of them had a very good level of English, so we switched back and forth between different languages, the kids translating to each other the card effects. It was not long before everyone got the hang of the gameplay. Each team started planning strategies, coordinating their actions to avoid landing on the wrong spaces, and seizing every opportunity to draw Pantheon cards and influence the game. Everyone loved the different Territory effects, the playful illustrations and the always-changing gameplay, especially with a couple of Twists of Fate thrown in 😉

If I may quote one of the most enthusiastic players: This is the best game in the whole world!!!

I couldn’t help but agree, of course. 😀

And so :

I played the game with two different groups, and each time everyone had fun and was excited to play it again! This was an extremely rewarding experience for me, and I felt proud and happy to have offered these kids such a good time. It was also a testament to the game’s high flexibility and accessibility, and allowed me to come up with yet another dynamic gameplay variant so all in all, a huge win all around!

Big big thanks to the ABC-house team, and of course that’s where the December launch event will take place, so Brussels people – keep your agendas open 🙂