Tales from the Loop: Thunder on the Ohio

About the adventure

It’s been raining for weeks. The Ohio River is swollen and restless, pressing against its banks as if trying to remember something it’s forgotten. Thunderstorms roll through almost every week—low, heavy thunder that doesn’t quite sound like thunder at all. Sometimes it rattles windows. Sometimes it hums through power lines. Sometimes it feels like it’s coming from underground. The adults say it’s just the weather. Or the new particle accelerator. Or progress. They’re wrong. Welcome to Evansville, 1984 Evansville is a town on the rise. Since the completion of The Loop—a massive particle accelerator built in partnership with DARPA and the local power company, SIGECO—jobs have poured in from across the country. New neighborhoods have sprung up. Neon lights glow along Main Street and Green River Road. Japanese architectural influence, brought by international partnerships with the sister city of Tochigi, Japan, has reshaped the skyline. A pagoda on the riverfront welcomes visitors. Windmills creak endlessly south of Dogtown. Three enormous cooling towers—the Three Freedoms—loom over the city like silent guardians. It’s a good place to grow up. Which is why it’s so terrifying that something is wrong. The Loop and the Thunder Officially, The Loop exists to advance science and provide clean, alternative power to the region. A Defense Research Facility known as DART operates nearby, staffed by some of the best minds in the country. Magnatrine technology—powerful, experimental, and poorly understood—has begun to appear everywhere, from factories to toys. Unofficially? The Loop was never meant to stand alone. Evansville’s accelerator was built alongside an identical one in Tochigi, Japan. The two facilities shared research, personnel, and breakthroughs. Over time, that connection deepened—until it stopped being metaphorical. Now, when the Thunder rolls, strange things happen: People appear who should be dead; Machines behave like frightened animals; Water flows where it shouldn’t; Memories don’t line up; Time feels… thin. The adults hear thunder and think noise. The kids hear thunder and feel something watching. You Play the Kids In Tales from the Loop: Thunder on the Ohio, you play kids between the ages of 10–15 growing up in Evansville during the mid-1980s. You don’t have weapons. You don’t have authority. You don’t have the full truth. What you do have: Bikes, skateboards, flashlights, and walkie-talkies, friends who believe you, and the ability to see what adults refuse to see. This is a game about friendship, fear, curiosity, and growing up in a world where impossible things are becoming quietly, terrifyingly normal. Adults are not villains — but they are busy, compromised, afraid, or convinced they understand more than they actually do. When things go wrong, they explain it away. When danger appears, they lock doors and issue warnings. Only the kids can solve these mysteries — because only kids are willing to believe the answers.