So far on InsideGMT we have covered the design process and how Carla and I managed to get from Thunder Alley to Apocalypse Road. We have discussed why we did it. We wrote about mistakes that we made. We have written about the “eureka” moments of finding not only what works but what works and is also cool. And we have described how the game plays. Stig has guided us through a pretty extensive After Action Report that highlighted many of the features of the game. Thanks Stig. To be honest I’m wracking my brain to find mechanical topics to write about. It really appears that the details are out there. For me the key now is to get this game into the market and let it speak for itself. That is going to require me to find some way to convert a few more of you into backers that will hop on the P500 and make this thing take-off.

Today I would like to discuss the most oddly controversial topic surrounding the game, the names. Long ago, way back in 2010, we decided that using real NASCAR names, teams and tracks would be possibly problematic for numerous reasons. So if we can’t have Hendrick Motorsports or Roush Racing and we don’t want to race at Talladega or Daytona and we can’t have Dale Jr., Jimmy or Kyle behind the wheel, we might as well create our own universe. We did just that and we called it the Thunderverse. People interested in helping to name some tracks or teams or drives (or all of the above) donated some money to Carla and me and in exchange we gave them the right no name parts of the Thunderverse. This continued into Grand Prix, Crew Chiefs, and now into Apocalypse Road. In the past these donations have helped Carla and me go to Origins, pay our phone bill or buy groceries. In exchange, I think we have one of the most unique and realistic fictional worlds in gaming. The Thunderverse is real exactly because it is as varied as real life, probably even more so.

Left to my own devices, I can guarantee you that the names would not have been better. The drivers would have been lots of family members and friends. Tracks would have been–ugh, I still don’t know what I would have done with them. The team names, would I have gone parody or tried to be realistic? Maybe I would have gone to defunct historical names? I don’t know. What I do know is that the sheer diversity and imagination that has arisen from these names is far beyond what I could have done on my own. While I would have had to come up with (including Apocalypse Road) 28 team names, 124 driver names and 21 track names, each person that stepped forward with a name only had to do one cool name that meant something to them personally. There is no way I could have given real meaning to 173 different names. Now they represent passed parents and spouses, immortalized children and grandchildren, long-running nicknames, girlfriends, life-long buddies, homages to where real people live that don’t see much coverage, hobbies, RPG names and so on and so on.

We, as a social group have made the Thunderverse what it is, a place for all of us. It is diverse and unusual. Nothing feels scripted and everything is unpredictable. I can truly appreciate why to some of you it feels awkward and non-linear. But that is pretty much exactly just like life, or at least my non-sequitur life. Maybe for some, a very base and interlocking naming strategy would immerse you more. If that is the case I do apologize for our methods. From the start I knew that I would not do well at naming everything (and that was just for Thunder Alley). I needed names from other people. In my opinion, it has been a wonderful experience. I still feel like I’m at a county fair when I race on the dirt track named after my wife’s family. I feel a tinge of respect when I race on the Circuito Dr. Tomas Gomez, I revel in young love when I open St. Adriana and I remember my own father when racing Verghn’s Grove. I don’t expect everyone to have the experiences that I do because only Carla and I know the story of every name in every game. But each and every name in those games means something to someone.

So I am not going to apologize for the names in Apocalypse Road, in fact I am going to revel in them. The Baguette Bakers painted the same color as the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hazleton Mountaineers who are clearly “mountain men” from Appalachia in the dark future, X-treme Hazard Racing from the untouched lands of an ice base in Antarctica, the Deadbeats from the deep south, st.mo and his para-military sounding Gelato Division all vie for victory. Veteran drivers like Frankenstein Simard, Jackhammer Brennan, Blinks, Dasher Carsten and Cannen Rock compete to survive until the next race. Here’s the honest truth, the game is better this way. It’s more interesting this way and it far surpasses anything Carla and I could do on our own.

I am sorry that this article took far longer to write than was really necessary. We had two close deaths in the family over the spring and by necessity, from January through May we were at hospitals, nursing homes and funerals for Carla’s brother (forever known as one of the sons operating the Fraley & Son’s Dirt Track in the Thunder Alley Track Expansion) and my mother (immortalized through her maiden name and birthplace by Quaker-Stubbs Motorsports in Thunder Alley). Life is now back on track and things that seemed so bleak over the first half of the year appear to have taken a turn for the better in the second half. We thank every single person that has purchased any of the Thunderverse from us and we look forward to getting this last chapter of it out to the market, where we know it will do well once it becomes available.

If the process of naming something interests you, we do have some naming options still available for Apocalypse Road and are always happy to have more participants helping us with these names. You can contact me directly at jagrcz68@aol.com and I’ll explain how you can become a permanent part of the Thunderverse.

Author: Jeff Horger