Thunder Road Reboot Announced by Restoration Games

I was going to homebrew a copy of Thunder Road, but maybe I'll wait. The most curious part of the article -- a retheme to Grindhouse art instead of post-apocalypse. Oh my.

www.polygon.com/tabletop-games/22567377/...r-release-date-price

Picked this up out of the Spielnacht von Mittwoch guild.

I think Restoration is going to find out the hard way that it was the Mad Max style setting that always sold this game.

I would probably be all over this if I wasn’t already heavily into Gaslands.

^was just thinking the same thing.

I will say that this is a design worth bringing back and adding a little bit to, this is a great choice.

Yeah but also Crossbows & Catapults! You guys!! CROSSBOWS AND CATAPULTS!

Andi Lennon wrote: Yeah but also Crossbows & Catapults! You guys!! CROSSBOWS AND CATAPULTS!

Yup!
www.polygon.com/tabletop-games/22567294/...r-release-date-price

I'm down for this. Hopefully they keep the games simple. I need stuff to play with my kids and lots of chrome and bling helps distract from vidja games, but lots of card text and rules pushes them right back.

Could Battlemasters be next? I wonder how well the Heroquest rerelease is doing as I imagine a lot of these type games appeal to a similar audience.

Them doing Crossbows and Catapults is so strange to me given that we can actively buy a game that is essentially the same, Catapult Kingdoms (also apparently called Catapult Feud). They are the same game, except it uses a soft rubber ball rather than a disc. Having had C/C and now having Catapult Kingdoms, I actually think that the ball is a bit better than the disc. They have my attention, but I have no idea what they could do to get me to want this.

I actually went in on this more deluxified affair but I'm starting to wonder if it'll ever escape its production woes

www.kickstarter.com/projects/wallsofscyd...s-action/description

I'd caution trusting RG too much - Fireball Island and Conspiracy were pretty bad modernizations. They both missed the points of the games they were "restoring" in favor of just adding more stuff. Unmatched is great but that barely resembles SW Epic Duels.

Their is certainly a trend of "nostalgia cash grabs" where a beloved (or at least somewhat well known) childhood IP is "turned gritty" in order to market it right back at the now adults instead of their kids.

Same with games, these simplistic roll and move type games get added complexity to appeal to adults rather than children.

Its a tough market. It was pretty easy for a plastic laden but overall kinda bad game to compete with atari and cga graphic computer games back in the day. But now....whoa! A board game needs a lot of help or direct parental involvement like a strict "no video games day" for it to gets kids IMHO. Thus the game needs to be at least somewhat fun for the adult as well, hence the added complexity.

The Kickstarter is live . I think it looks good. Despite what I said up thread about Gaslands, I realized I have room for a shorter, more board gamey version for game nights. And I decided to back it until I saw the shipping costs; I can’t justify $70 for the base game. I guess I’ll wait for retail, if that happens. If it doesn’t, I can always make a copy, even if it is only the original.

Haha, I just posted in the Kickstarter thread. The Kickstarter has been cancelled and postponed to January now. The art and game looks pretty great, I've never played the original and I'd never get someone to play Gaslands with me.

Wonder what happened to the grindhouse art.

$50 game. More than that is money spent on a wish.

I checked out the now cancelled KS campaign. This looks a lot different than what I was expecting in a good way. I like the big rig and motorcycles expansion. Based on the campaign graphics everything looks cereal box quality so definitely overpriced. Sadly they're more likely to bling it than lower the price. I wasn't going to back anyways as I'm basically all-in on Rallyman so don't need another racer in my life. Also the Thunder Road I remember was enjoyable because it was so simple while still pulling off its theme. Looking at all the expansion stuff this could be a monster of a game.

It looks kind of neat and they kept switch and link…but here’s the deal. Restoration too often loses sight of the simplicity, directness, and compactness of the games they redo. They did it with Fireball Island, Dark Tower, and now this. I don’t want a $150 adult hobby game with a bunch of tacked on cruft out of these titles. I want a $35 kids game that is practically effortless to play, kind of dumb, and just plain fun. I don’t want to sort expansion content, fuss around with player powers, deal with multiple card decks or any of that modern gaming crap. It’s like taking a Ramones song and adding a 2 minute Joe Satriani guitar solo in the middle.

There’s a big difference between a light modernizing touch and redeveloping the charm and whimsy out of a design in favor of appeasing modern audiences that want every game to be a splorricky morass of hodge podge design ideas crammed together to feign sophistication and drive KS stretch goals.

Agreed, it looks like all of the expansion stuff solely exists to add complexity. In this specific case, what I would want out of expansions is VARIETY, not complexity.

Even the KS exclusive card pack looks like unnecessary extra junk. I'll grab the base box at retail and save a ton of money in the process.

I played their Fireball Island once, and it was disappointing. Our host went all in on the extras for that Kickstarter, so setup was long and fiddly and things kept getting bumped out of place during setup, leading to more setup. After all that trouble, the game was just a magnificently over-produced roll-and-move that didn't offer much in the way of strategy, narrative, or direct interaction. The highlight was when somebody used the Crouching Tiger thingie and it hit a pretentious hipster player in the eye.

hotseatgames wrote: I'll grab the base box at retail and save a ton of money in the process.

That’s where I’m at. Not for a second did I ever consider getting the expansions. I’ll take a look at the rulebook to check out the basic additions they made, but at this point I might just make a version of the original using Hot Wheels.

Disgustipater wrote: but at this point I might just make a version of the original using Hot Wheels.

That was my thought before this was announced. As it stands, with all the “upgrade” you’re buying a game with the same title as the game you want, not the game you want.

This should be a $50 title, single box. All the other shit ladled on top is just to drive up the volume on kickstarter. At that point make your own.

You can still pick up the original for like $30 including shipping on Ebay if you keep an eye out for it.

I love Thunder Road, but I think it could use a little more chrome without reaching the heights of excess on a simple game Barnes is talking about. Unless you just want to play it with kids or drunks, then you can just pick up the old version, which is a valid use case.

That’s why I want to check out the new rules and see if some of the additions would add an extra bit of depth that would be nice to have.

Disgustipater wrote: That’s why I want to check out the new rules and see if some of the additions would add an extra bit of depth that would be nice to have.

I am completely on the other side of the fence. If I want to play a game with more depth, I'll play a different game.

I'm half waiting for them to re-boot Mall Madness with the added depth of computing compound interest on your credit card.

I literally saw Mall Madness in a store the other day. It already got that reboot and you do use an ATM card with it! www.amazon.com/Madness-Talking-Electroni...id=1634238305&sr=8-2