A Word from the Designer, Dan Verssen

Tabletop Origins
Down In Flames (DiF) began as a card game submission to GMT Games about 11 years ago. At the time, it was titled “Ra-tat-tat” and was a game about WWI biplane dogfighting. While GMT liked the game, we all agreed that WWII was a better market for a game and the decision made to advance the timeline from WWI to WWII.

During development, it soon became obvious that there was more material than would fit into one box, so the idea of making Down In Flames into a series of games came up. After much discussion, it was decided to have a series of four games: the early war in Europe, the early war in the Pacific, the late war in Europe, and the late war in the Pacific.

Now, 11 years later, all four games have been published and we have been fortunate enough to have won several game design awards along the way with the series.

 

The Team Comes Together
Because of DiF I was able to meet Brian Marrs. Brian is a professional programmer who was a fan of the game and decided to code his own version of it. When I saw what Brian had done, I was very impressed and thought it had commercial possibilities, but didn’t know how to take it to the next step of becoming a marketable game.

Enter Chris Richardson. Chris and I had met while I was play testing my Star Trek Collectible Dice Game at a local game store. We became friends and eventually business partners on several projects. Chris had always been more into computer gaming than I had and immediately agreed that Brian’s work had great potential.

From November of 2002 until spring of 2003 Brian, Chris, and I worked hard to get the game as polished as possible in time for the huge E3 computer game show here in Los Angeles. When the time came, we packed up some self-made CDs and brochures and went off to E3 to pitch the game. E3 was amazing. The convention area was huge, taking up five floors of convention space spread over 3 massive rooms. It had hundreds of different game companies showing their latest games, half naked beautiful women demoing games, massive display screens, towers of audio equipment, and thousands and thousands of people walking around trying to see everything while rock concert level music blasted out of all the speakers. For the shear volume of money spent on an event, I have never seen anything like it. The larger companies spent millions of dollars just on the E3 show. The booth space for a 10 foot by 10 foot cost $10,000. I can only imagine what the 200 foot by 100 foot booth spaces cost. But, in another way, a very important way, E3 was very disappointing. For all the money, lights, music, and hype, there was very little variety in the actual games themselves. I would guess that half the games there were first person shooters with only the smallest of differences. Most of the other games were fantasy games based around walking around with a sword hacking things. Where was the variety? Where were all the other types of games I had been playing for 20 years? Nowhere to be found. What was worse, after talking with some of the companies, they weren’t even looking for them. Their design philosophy was to look at what everyone else was making and make their own version. So, after taking one more look at the beautiful half naked demo women, we left the convention.

We started the new search for a company by browsing the internet. I soon came across several references to a revolutionary game system called “Combat Mission” by Battlefront. I downloaded the demo and was amazed by what I saw. Finally! A company that understood what it meant to make a challenging, attractive game that actually had feel and flavor, and could be played in a reasonable amount of time. I sent Battlefront an email explaining who I was and the DIF project I would like to show them, and crossed my fingers …

Within a day I had a reply. This in itself was amazing. Most companies don’t respond at all, and if they do it is weeks or months later. Luckily, the guys at Battlefront had heard of Down In Flames and said they would like to take a look at what we had. A truly exciting day.

We started refining the game and upgrading the graphics. It was around this point that Chris decided to leave the project due to life circumstances. I was sorry to see him go, and am very thankful for his help in getting the project off the ground.

 

 

Development
During the past 12 months we have been hard at work developing the game to get it ready for its release. Where we once had 100 aircraft animations, we now have around 2,000. Where once the game was pretty much what came in the card game box, we have now added cool new features like pilot experience, skills, medals, ranks, and more.

It has been a very busy 12 months with many ups and downs on a weekly basis as new features are added, detailed, and finalized.

Which brings us to where we now, the game.

 

Conclusion
Our goal is to have DIF out by the end of summer. If you have any questions now, or after the game comes out, I will be looking through the Battlefront forum each day and answering questions.

I hope you enjoy the game, helping to create it has been quite an adventure!

Sincerely,
Dan Verssen
Down In Flames Creator