Hi everyone, it’s been a long time since I have brought any news of the Thunder Alley Racing Series to you. As some of you know, we have been using some play testers for various components and add-ons to the game series. These include bringing new tracks, new expansions, and solo play to the collection. Carla & I have been toying with ideas, including some of those presented to us by the fantastic Richard Launius, to help make each of the games even better than they are now. These ideas consist of league play, new Racing Decks, new events, new teams, “build your own” cars, and even an entirely new game with a new style of racing. This is just sort of our update to you on what is going on with the Thunder Alley Racing Series this year and into the future.

First off are the tracks. We are making a range of new tracks. The exciting part is that each of these tracks are designed to be used with each game in the series. There will be a Thunder Alley friendly portion of the track, a Grand Prix extension, and an associated Apocalypse Road course complete with jumps and dirt on each track. This will allow for the tracks to be useful to any player no matter if they are only die-hard stock car racers or immersed in the entire series. Each track from here on in will have something for everyone. Some of these very roughly drawn sample tracks are shown below. Trust me, my primitive etchings are not close to the final product.

Next up, and furthest along is the Race Day expansion for Thunder Alley. This expansion focuses on aiding in series or league play. To this end it has an 8^th team, auto manufacturers, sponsors, scoring methodology, and a flavor geared towards encouraging leagues and a recurring group. But no, it isn’t just for leagues. The scoring element changes are great for one-off play, as are the advanced Racing Deck, and the new events. I think this is an ultimate must-have for Thunder Alley players, even more so than the Crew Chief expansion (or at least as much). Thunder Alley is just one of those games that just works, and with a little creativity and a little patience there seems to be plenty of room for new parts and ideas.

At the same time as Race Day is being developed, just a bit behind it, is a solo module for Thunder Alley called Behind the Wheel. I have never been much of a solo gamer myself, as I have always been blessed with a variety of friends to play with in groups. In fact, my problem is usually the opposite, frequently having too many people for a game. But recently, the combination of the solo game boom combined with some health issues of my own have had me take a new look at solo systems. Now I admit I don’t have years of experience creating and using these systems, but I know what I like and with some help from GMT, I’m trying to venture into that design space. We started with Thunder Alley because that seems to be the logical and easiest place to start. We have created team strategies with specialized Racing Decks that focus on Keywords to instruct players on how to move non-player cars. Right now, I’d say I’m about 75-80% happy with their performance. They can still be ‘gamed’ a bit and that is just down to me needing to clean up their definitions.

After that, we are still working on the first expansions for Grand Prix and Apocalypse Road. The Grand Prix expansion looks like it will be a combination of Crew Chiefs and Race Day but focusing on the F1 experience. And Apocalypse Road will cover car building and new weaponry. I wish that was moving along faster, but it is very hard to come up with ideas that fit into such a tight combat system that don’t interrupt the flow while providing more choices. Honestly most of the best ideas here have come from Carla. She has quite the knack for finding the easiest and most elegant answer for sticky problems. As an example, my 1970’s and 80’s inculcated wargame mind could not figure out how to make adaptable car mats without making it look like a D&D character sheet. She waltz’s in, says “hmmm just do that” and breezes off to something else. I stare at the sheet; I stare at the space she just vacated and toss the sheet in the trash and start working on her extremely simple solution. You don’t know how lucky you are to have Carla helping me out with these games.

Finally, we have another new type of racing to introduce to the Racing Series, cycling. Our new game is called Ride the Wind and features road racing. It may not be obvious to everyone, but we adapted many of the original concepts of Thunder Alley from previous cycling games that we played. Additionally, about five years ago someone boldly used Thunder Alley as a template for their own cycling game. You probably never heard of it, but On the Rivet does exist (I have a copy that I backed on Kickstarter). I had offered to put him in contact with GMT and assist in any way I could. In the end he just wanted to do it his way and I let it be. It was an OK adaptation, but it lacked the one thing that really sets cycling apart from the other games, the peloton. So, with full disclosure, we are literally using his parts to create a brand-new game with a hearty focus on the peloton and the action inside the mass of humanity. Yes, there are breakaways, stragglers, duels, events and everything you expect from the racing series. But there is also this struggle to navigate inside the peloton and hopefully to break out, and with luck stay out, of the mob.

After 10 years of racing in the Thunderverse, Carla and I are always thrilled to know we have created something that pleases so many people. Over the last decade we have been literally stunned to see the global reach of the game and the various people that have played it and enjoyed it. People who love racing enjoy the game. People who despise racing enjoy the game. I have talked with players from most of the continents that enjoyed the game (only Antarctica has not been heard from). At this point we are just trying to keep the current systems up to date and fresh. And we are always looking to make new changes and styles, like cycling, that might be a gateway for more people to find and enjoy this system. Here’s to an exciting second decade of racing.

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Thunder Alley Racing Series on GMT’s Website