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Divinity Derby is the most recent addition to the Euro games range of Ares Games – the fourth in the series. All these games have one thing in common: they are very light in terms of rules, and enjoyable by families, newbies, but also by experienced gamers, thanks to original mechanics and deep gameplay. Its predecessors featured conflicts in a mythic pre-Colombian setting, spies in a Venetian carnival, the journeys of Ulysses facing the wrath of an angry god. Divinity Derby once again uses a mythological theme, this time in a racing and betting game where players pretend to be gods, betting on a race of elegant (and not-so-elegant!) flying creatures.
When the Ares playtest crew met for the first time Carlo Rossi’s prototype (at the time called “Aeolus” - it already featured ancient mythology as a theme, but with a different take than in the published version) we immediately fell in love with core system.
Many betting games fall short in terms of information, interaction, or both. Carlo’s design had at its core a simple but incredibly powerful idea: players can influence a race by playing their cards from hand… but they do not have ONE hand of cards. They have two hands of cards, each placed on a cardholder and shared with one of the neighbors. This clever twist immediately create interaction – cards in the shared hand will be played by only one of two players; it also gives to the players a good amount of information about the odds of the race, and the intentions of other players. But the information is not complete, so you still have to use psychology and a little guesswork to place the right bets. And you can often end up being surprised by what the real intention of your opponents was!
With such a good core mechanic (previously used by Carlo himself in another game he designed, Hab und Gut), there is not the need of adding much more to have a beautiful, intelligent gameplay. The betting system is also simple and clever, and does not detract the attention from the race and the interaction in the drafting of movement cards. Each player has a set of 11 different bets, and they are played hidden (two at the start of each of three races, one in the middle of each). Choosing which bets to play, which ones to leave out, and the right moment to play them, is also an important element of the strategy. In the end, it’s your bets that make you win or lose the game.
The original prototype already contained a system to make the race more varied, by allowing the players to place special tiles on the board to make the race track a little different each time. We thought this was a great idea, but we realized it could be expanded upon, and make the theme a little deeper. Divinities in ancient mythologies are associated with a lot of different powers – what if we took inspiration from them, and make each of the player-gods different, by giving him unique abilities to influence the race? This involved a lot of playtesting, but the end result is that now you can play the game at a simpler level - just using the core mechanics - or using the asymmetrical “Power of the Gods” variant, where each player receives a set of three very powerful cards he can use to influence the race. Two of them can be played at any moment, while the third one (similarly to the original system designed by Carlo) is limited to specific spots on the race track, marked at the beginning of each race with a “Fate token.”
Thanks to the combination of the original core mechanics with the fun and unpredictability of different god powers, we think Divinity Derby is a game which can be enjoyed in many different ways. Add to this the beautiful art (by Denis Martynets) and figures (by Bob Naismith), and we can really hope that we have developed a game which you can enjoy playing many, many times with friends of all ages!
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