First Impressions of Thunder Alley

This is not a full review, merely a first look at the game and whether I like what I saw.

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Thunder Alley is a real drag! By which I mean most of the time you’ll be dragging everyone else around the track as you go. The movement system in this racing game attempts to simulate the bunching of cars that occurs during the classic stock car racing featured by NASCAR. What this means in game turns is that most of the moves you make (by choosing and playing cards from your hand) will also move other cars in your row. Sets of cars can race ahead much faster than any car on its own, so losing the pack and being left behind can be brutal. Naturally, this means you can really screw each other over!

Shoving cars out of lines, particularly ones that have already moved this turn, playing cards that leave your opponents’ cars unmoved while the rest fly away, this game can be really brutal! Sometimes it won’t even be the other players, as random events can see stressed bolts shearing off and overworked engines exploding. Fortunately, every player has a pool of 4 cars, and it is the collective positions of all 4 of these cars that determines the race winner. A big challenge in race games are run away winners, but Thunder Alley forces players to aim for consistency across their set of cars.

Thunder Alley does an impressive job of utilising strong Eurogame mechanics to drive (pun absolutely intended) this classically American theme. The hand management associated with card driven movement, the clever interaction between everyone’s cars and the need to keep every member of your team in a good position, rather than focussing on individual glory, hangs within the slipstream of a brutal take that race to the finish.

This integration of theme and mechanics is the mark of a modern game, but the components are those of something much older. Given the artwork and quantity of small cardboard chits, I was shocked to find out the game was only from 2014! Being British, I don’t car much for NASCAR, and racing games don’t tend to enthuse me, but the quality engine underpinning Thunder Alley made for a really interesting game. I’m not ready to rave about it, but I would certainly play it again.