Thunder Alley Review

I am not a stock car racing fan. I know almost nothing about stock car racing, and have never really given an effort to learning about it. This is what I brought with me before sitting down to play Thunder Alley - my expectations were not super high.


In Thunder Alley, players are put in command of a team of stock cars, and will score points according to the place each of their team's cars are in when the race ends (the round after at least 1 car crosses the finish line). Basically, players want as many of their team's cars as close to the front of the pack as possible by the end of the race.

The biggest thing I kept hearing about Thunder Alley is that it is a racing game without dice. Indeed, Thunder Alley's action is "driven" (hehe) entirely by cards. Each round, players will be given a hand of cards, and a player's turn consists simply of choosing one of her hand cards, choosing which of their still unactivated cars to use it on, and executing the actions indicated by the numbers and the text.

There are 4 basic types of movement in Thunder Alley:

1. Solo movement - a single activated car moves by itself
2. Draft movement - an activated car and all linked cars in front of and behind it move together
3. Lead movement - an activated car and all linked cars behind it move together
4. Pursuit movement - an activated car and all linked cars in front of it move together

Links between cars are created when cars are in the same lane, and are immediately adjacent to each other. A link could theoretically exist among all of the cars in a race, if they were all lined up in the same lane and there were no empty spaces separating any of them.

The movement cards in Thunder Alley are sometimes simply one of the four movement types listed above with a numerical value, and sometimes they involve a slight twist - like only being able to move towards the outside/inside wall this turn. Most of the cards with higher movement values will also include a damage icon.

There are two main types of damage in the game - temporary and permanent. As the names' suggest, temporary wear can be repaired, while permanent wear cannot. After receiving 3 wear tokens of any type, a car will suffer a penalty to its movement. And after taking 6 wear tokens a car will be removed from the race altogether. So managing wear tokens gets more and more important as the race goes on.

Players take turns playing cards and executing movement until everyone has activated each of their team's cars. Once all cars have been activated an event card is revealed, which could result in some of the cars receiving extra wear tokens, or a yellow caution flag, or even a premature end of the race due to rain. 

In between rounds players will have the option of pitting their cars. Doing so will allow the player to remove all temporary wear tokens from the pitting car, but will require the car to not only move back 5 spaces, but will also cause the car to suffer a movement penalty on their next turn.

The race will end once at least one car finishes the required number of laps. Any cars that cross the finish line are awarded the highest value trophy token available. After all the cars have been activated, for the round the game will end, and any cars that haven't crossed the finish line will be awarded trophy tokens according to their current place.

Thunder Alley has a theme I don't care about, more randomness than I usually care for, and fairly boring (though very nice looking) components. All that being said - I have had a great time playing this game. 

The strategy of the game is fairly clear - keep your cars on the inside lane and grouped with other cars as much as possible - but playing the game is a lot of fun. The chaos of not knowing what the other players are going to do, coupled with the excitement of the temporary alliances and rivalries that are formed as players move other teams' cars either purposely or inadvertently make for a really great experience.

As I mentioned, there is a good amount of randomness in the game - I had at least one round a game where I had drawn a full hand of cards that I simply did not want. This, while frustrating, is mitigated by the fact that since multiple cars are usually moved each turn, player's cars may actually be moved more on other players' turns than on their own. 

Thunder Alley is a great racing game, and the team aspect of the whole thing really sets it apart from any other racing game I've played. It is by far my favorite of the genre. I give it an 8.0/10.

Jim would like to thank GMT Games for providing him with a copy of Thunder Alley for review.

Tymor Kickstarter Preview

[This post is not a review, but a preview of a game currently seeking funding on Kickstarter. Final rules, art, or components are subject to change.]

Tymor is set in a land where players are struggling to rebuild their kingdoms after the world suffered an ancient calamity that has unhinged the natural rhythm of the seasons.

This interesting storyline is reflected in game by a season track. To start off each round, the active player will roll the season die to determine which way the season counter will move. 2 out of 3 times it will move forward normally, but there is always a chance that the calamity's effects will be felt, and the season could remain the same, or even regress to the previous season.

Depending on the season, players will receive income, and will then have to pay upkeep for the units on the board - suffering a penalty for each gold they are unable to pay.

On a player's turn, she gets to activate all of the units she has on the board. There are types of units (not including buildings). These units can all perform a "basic move" which is just moving from one hex to another, as long as there are no opponent's units in the destination hex.

The game looks great on the table. And this is just the prototype!

The Merchant's special move allows him to move into hexes occupied by enemy forces. The Priest can, instead of moving, spend gold in order to build a new settlement, or upgrade an existing one. Soldiers have the ability to start combat. They can declare an attack as their action, moving into a hex with opposing units and beginning a battle.

One of the most interesting parts of Tymor is that each of these types of unit's has a unique was of scoring the player points. The Merchant scores points by being on a hex with a opponent's settlement during the income phase of the game. Not only will this Merchant give the owning player some extra cash, they will also move up the Trade Points track on the score board. Priests score points by building up the player's Empire, and Soldiers score points by eliminating the enemy in battle.

How beautiful is that artwork?

This gameplay I have outlined above would definitely work, and make a decent game. But the cards in the game add whole new layers of strategy, tactics, and bluffing to the game. These cards come in 3 varieties that match the three types of units and scoring in the game. They have abilities like allowing units to act as other units, providing boosts to the normal actions, and just gaining the player resources.

Tymor is a lot of fun to play. It is that rare game that I am always on the lookout for - great theme, euro mechanisms, with a healthy dose of dice. I really like how there are 3 different score tracks that focus on the 3 different types of units. It makes the overall structure and goal of the game very easy to grasp. A game with similar weight and complexity without this simple differentiation/structure could easily be seen as overly complex for some people - I think the designer has done a great job in this respect.

Keep away from my stuff!!

One thing I don't care for in the game is the fact that since all 3 of the different ways of scoring are almost mandatory, combat is inevitable. Now I enjoy combat games - check my review of BattleLore Second Edition if you don't believe me! But what I don't really care for is combat in games where at least part of the goal of the game is to build stuff up. I just hate the feeling I get when something that I put effort into building up comes crumbling down.

One of my favorite parts of Tymor is the way that scoring works. I've already talked about how I like the segmented scoring system in Tymor, which is great. But another aspect of scoring in Tymor is that each of the separate scoring categories works a bit like a race. The most points a player can get in any of the categories in 10 points - the top space on each track. However, at the end of each round, players check to see if anyone has made it to the top of any of the tracks. If they have, that track is considered "closed" and while other players can still score points on that track, no one else may enter the top space. And since the players' positions on these tracks are very much public, this dynamic can create some very interesting interactions and motivations for the players on the board. Additionally, the tracks also act as a timer - since the game will end once all 3 tracks have been closed.

Tymor is a wonderful little game. It takes a few mechanisms we've seen before, throws in some really interesting new ideas, and is good solid fun. It isn't too complex, but it's also far from a filler. If you think you'd like a get a copy of Tymor for yourself, go check out the Kickstarter going on right now! The campaign is almost half way funded with plenty of time to go!