Odyssey: The Shifting Seas

Boost MeThe gods demand no tribute. The designer, however, accepts Boosts. If you like Odyssey: The Shifting Seas, a Boost helps support future updates and more projects like this one.Before you print This is a large project. The assembled board is a table-filling centerpiece, roughly 56 cm across, with concentric rotating sea rings, a mechanical gearbox, a center dial, sculpted island tiles, a modular ship, custom dice, cards, and supply pieces. Expect a long print campaign: many unique parts, a lot of filament, and many hours on the printer. This is not a single-weekend model. Read the print instructions before you print. They are in the Assembly Instructions booklet. Some parts, notably the parts of the ship, pause mid-print so you can drop magnets into open cavities. Look at those pages first, or you will miss the pauses. Most of the set is designed to print easily, with little or no support. The exceptions are some of the island tiles and miniatures. Some of them need supports and a tedious cleanup afterwards. A few plates are packed with small parts, axles, gears, and the like. Those need good bed adhesion. The files do not include brims; on a Cool Plate SuperTack they were not needed. If your plate is less sticky, add brims yourself. Assembly takes real time. After printing you still have a full build: side panels, Helios indicators, a multi-step gearbox with axles and gears, sea rings, route rings, axles, and the final board. Many joints use glue. Others use magnets or snap connectors. Plan on a careful, unhurried assembly session — not a quick snap-together. Follow the Assembly Instructions from the first page; do not glue the gearbox parts until the whole board turns correctly. The rules are still being finetuned. This release is playable, but the design is not frozen. Sea it as a beta release in terms of gameplay, if you have any suggestions on rules and finetuning please share. Later updates may change: the number of game pieces the gearing systems the dial (including player-count variants) the rules the dice If you print now, you may need to reprint some parts when the voyage is revised. Treat this as a living prototype you can play, display, and help improve. You will also need these besides the printed parts:12× 608RS bearings (8 × 22 × 7 mm) At least 30 magnets, 8 mm diameter × 4 mm height, for the ship model. Extra magnets if you want to replace snap in connectors with magnets. Optional: 42× rubber dome feet, 8 mm diameter × 3 mm height, if you print the dome mounts instead of solid feet. Super glue Silicone grease Small pliers Tweezers A paper printer for the cards The voyage Ten years of war are over. Troy has fallen. Its towers are smoke behind you. At last Odysseus and his weary crew can turn their faces toward home.   Home should be an easy voyage away.   It is not.   The seas belong to gods, monsters, witches, giants, and winds with minds of their own. Safe channels close without warning. Night falls while you are still far from shore. A welcoming island may fill the hold with food; the next may offer only a Cyclops with a very large club. All the while, the sands of ten precious years slip through Chronos' hourglass.   You are the surviving crew of Odysseus' one ship. You do not command rival heroes. You share one hull, one position on the board, one store of Supply, and one goal: bring Odysseus to Ithaca before time, hunger, or the wrath of the gods destroys the expedition.   The board itself is alive. Turn the dial and Helios carries the sun from day into night. Turn the dial and Aeolus shifts the wind — the route rings rotate, old passages vanish, and new ones open across the wine-dark sea. Sail with the breeze. Navigate when the channels align. Explore Circe's isle, the cave of Polyphemus, the song of the Sirens, and the olive tree of Ithaca. Repair the ship when the sea takes a piece of it. Pray, if the gods are still listening.   You all reach home together — or become one more tale told beside the wine-dark sea. How to build it. How to play it. Assembly Instructions: follow the assembly booklet first. It includes the print instructions (read those before you start the printer) and then walks through every major subsystem: Helios, side panels, the gearbox, the sea rings, the wind rings, and final board assembly, including magnets, feet, and connectors. Most of it you only do once. When finished you can still disassemble the board partly for storage.   Cards: To play the game you need 2 decks of cards, the basic cards and the adventure cards. In the attached PDF files you will find both in 2 formats: A page-per-card format, and a 6-page-per-card format (suitable to use on a A4 capable home printer). Both also contain the backsides.    Rulebook: once the board turns, open the rulebook. It covers game setup, the shared ship, cards, island challenges, day and night dice, Helios, Chronos, and how the crew wins or is lost at sea.   Both booklets can be found below: odyssey-the-shifting-seas-assembly.pdf odyssey-the-shifting-seas-rulebook.pdf Print the PDFs, keep them beside the printer, and start with the assembly booklet — not with a pile of unlabeled gears. Fair winds.   A note on AI All mechanics and the game board are designed without AI. Island and miniature models were partly generated using AI, then edited by humans to fit the game mechanics and aesthetics. AI was also used to help generate cards, documentation, and the rulebook.   Updates Update 24 august '26: To improve gameplay: The number of supply amphorae has been increased in the printprofile. The sea and route parts are changed (the blue visual parts). The dicefaces for the sail and explore dice are changed. The number of different cards are changed. Some rules in the rulebook are finetuned.