Interview with Phil Hall, Designer of Blue Max by GDW
Phil Hall designed and developed Blue Max, which was released by GDW in 1983. The game system had many new innovations, and
became a classic game that is still played today.
There are several spinoffs from the original Blue Max game, most notably, Blue Max Miniatures Rules, Canvas Eagles, and Warbirds in Miniature.
Fans have enjoyed the game so much that there is even an online version of it that is very popular.
It has been more than 20 years since the release of Blue Max, and people are still playing it, expanding upon it, and enjoying it. This is something
that most games cannot claim.
Thank you Phil for taking the time to share your thoughts with us!
What do you do for a living? What is your profession?
Well, for 35 years I was a letter carrier and I'm now retired.
How did you get started/interested in wargames/miniature wargaming? (What age? Who introduced you to it? Did you have a local group/gamestore?)
I remember seeing the first Avalon Hill board wargames in the old Sears Christmas catalog in the late '50's and wanting them so bad. I would have been about 10 at the time and they said 12 and up on the box, and they were rather expensive, around $5.00 as I recall. I had always played with toy soldiers and had a Marx Civil War set that saw considerable action. I was also a fan of The Big Picture, a WWII history program, and such series as Henessey and any other show involving war.
What was the first wargame that you played/owned? How about your first miniatures game?
The first wargame I owned was AH's Bismarck. My brother and I played it to destruction. I bought all the AH games that came out after that.
The first miniature game I played was a home brew set of rules that Greg Novak introduced me to on the Revolutionary War. It was so darned exciting that I never made it to sleep that night, resulting in a really loooooonnng day at work the next day.
Were you a fan of board games before switching to miniature gaming? If so, what games did you play? What was/is your favorite?
Board games were pretty much all there was when I got
interested. I really can't name a favorite, although
Richthofen's War by AH got nearly used up, as did
SPI's WWI air combat game that came in the magazine.
What got you interested in aviation games? (Had
you always been a fan of aviation history, built
models, or attend air shows?)
When I was about 3 or 4 I was looking up and a blimp
flew over the house. It landed at the local airport
and my folks (and half the town) went out to look at
it. I was hooked on flying after that. I built almost
all the old 1/48th Aurora WWI and WWII aircraft and
most of the 1/48th Monogram stuff. I thought the
working bomb bays and dive brakes and landing gear was
really cool at the time. I even stuck a .50 cal on the
upper wing of a Curtiss Jenny because I thought it
looked neat.
Before developing this game, had you designed/developed other games before?
No, this was a first and only.
What made you want to take on the project? What were your expectations when you started?
I wanted a WWI flying game that would allow a lot of
people to play at the same time and wasn't an Igo/Ugo
system like all the rest. Plus I had just bought some
of the best looking a/c in 1/285th by CnC miniatures
and wanted to have a game to play with them. I was
playing the Nova Ace of Aces game, the one with the
books, and it wasn't really usable as a multi-player
game. I liked the idea of only 3 ranges of shooting
and thought I could use hexes with that. The first
iteration involved using the 3" hexes from AH's Magic
Realm and everyone laying out hexes to show where they
were moving. I had developed a number of hex based
maneuvers to see if the idea would work. It didn't.
Next came individual cards describing the maneuvers on
a hex sheet, much like WizKids Crimson Skies game.
That was ok, but meant you had to have a lot of cards
for people. Next came charts with the moves on them,
and that worked like a charm. Then I started
customizing the a/c to fly like they did in real life.
Once I got a system that would allow more than one
player, and could be played a simultaneous move
system, I had reached my goal.
What difficulties or challenges did you encounter during development?
Most game designers at the time had a ready-made
system to hang a game on. All board wargames had the
same basics. A hex map-board with a ground scale, a
set of chits with numbers to describe abilities, a
combat results chart, and a movement chart. Then they
simply added whatever chrome they felt the specific
game needed. It meant that anyone familiar with that
type of board game could pick up any companies game
and play it in short order. All I had were hexes. I
had to work out the capabilities of each a/c, then
come up with a legitimate combat table that reflected
air-air combat, a simultaneous system of moving, and a
rationale for all I did.
What were some things that you learned during the development process?
Don't let yourself get wedded to any one way of doing
something. My first combat results chart was based on
Wooden Ships and Iron Men combat result chart. I
really liked the idea, but people in the playtest
began gaming the system for the absolute perfect shot.
A friend suggested using chit draws instead of a
simple hit chart. I wasn't sure about that since I
considered the ranges to be so close that the pattern
of shot would be rather close, or so I thought. And I
really liked the chart. But one of my aviation
magazines showed up with a serendipitous article on
machine gun mounting in a/c from WWI to the Korean
War. The article described the mounts in WWI as being
"crude". Some loosness was left in the mount to take
up some of the recoil of the gun and reduce stress on
the framework of the plane. Ah Hah!. It would be ok to
use a chit pick in which you could hit any part of the
plane from any range. So in went the chits, and a
better game came out. But I still really like the hit
chart I did.
Be very careful of how much of your passion you invest
in the creative process. If you love something enough
to lovingly create a game out of it, you may find you
lose the joy of it. I suppose that happenend to me an
Blue Max. When I updated it to a miniatures game, the
joy of the work just wasn't there. The miniatures game
is the ultimate Blue Max, with 25 levels of altitude
and more planes. But it felt mechanical to do it. The
ideas had been developed during the first edition, but
left out when the developer felt altitude wasn't
needed (and it wasn't. The rationale being that all
turns are beyond a 45deg. wing bank, which means the
a/c are falling out of the air, getting lower on each
turn, and the amount of fuel restricts you to about 2
minutes of dogfighting). So putting it all back in was
simply a matter of writing and not creating.
Since the release of the game, what other projects have you worked on?
None, actually. It was a one shot deal. I was having
lunch with Greg Novak and Frank Chadwick when Frank
said "Design me a game". I said, I am working on one
now. He came by on a Wednesday night to play it and
got shot down on the very first turn. I figured it was
all over for this game, but he hung around and thought
it would work. And it did. After that my only claim to
fame would be the box-box movement system that GDW
used in the American Civil War game and a few others.
Frank, Greg and I would get together and have lunch
and discuss game design. I had developed a theory that
you didn't need hexes in a strategic game since
battles were fought at specific locations for specific
reasons. Frank asked how I would move troops, and I
said box to box along roads or rail lines or rivers,
whatever was appropriate. The rest is history.
Do you attend any Cons on a regular basis?
The only two I make are the local one, Winter War, in
February in Champaign Il., and Little Wars in
Lincolnshire, Il whenever they hold it in the spring.
How did you get connected with GDW?
I met Frank and his crew shortly after I met Greg
Novak. I was president of the local International
Plastic Modelers Society and Greg showed up at a
meeting trying to drum up wargamers. I was what he
drummed up. Greg was teaching in a small town about 45
minutes north of me, and set up a one day mini-con at
the local school. He invited GDW to come as a vendor,
the only one as I recall. GDW had just published
Triplanetary and Chaco and weren't much of a game
company yet, just a group of college pals who had an
idea for a game company. I pretty much kept in touch
with them through Greg and like most acquaintances it
just grew into a long term relationship.
Did Allan Wright and you work together on the miniatures version of Blue Max?
Not exactly. Frank decided, just before GDW went
under, to do an upgrade of the game. Allan had a
website for BM. When I found it I got in contact with
him and explained how I designed the planes. He wanted
early war a/c for the game and did them up on his own.
Along came the upgrade and I offered Allan a
co-designers spot in return for using the early war
a/c charts. Never duplicate some elses efforts.
Are you familiar with the online version of Blue Max at youplay.it?
Yes. I found it by accident. Just for the heck of it I
google BM occasionally. When I popped into the site I
was a bit surprised. No one had contacted me about it.
I wasn't too concerned. I eventually gave them
premission to go ahead with it. I consider it good advertising for BM myself. It keeps the game before the public eye.
Canvas Eagles: Eric Hotz and you are collaborating
on the next version of Blue Max/Canvas Eagles how did the
evolution from Blue Max Miniatures to Canvas Eagles take place and on
what level were you involved?
Eric contacted me after the miniatures version came
out. I think my email address was included [in the rules]. I didn't
have anything to do with CE. Eric did it all himself.
It was a case of another fan expanding on the original
idea. Eric has been a nice about including BM as part
of CE and crediting it as part of CE. We have a
gentleman's agreement about putting both of them out
as a PDF and splitting the profit. There is a very
minor possibility of a tie-in to the Flyboys movie.
Eric was contacted by a company doing promo for the
movie about CE, but the company does tie-in video
games. We will have to see if anything comes of it.
What are your future plans? (games, add-ons, etc.)
Generally I don't have any. We did over a thousand
playtest games of Blue Max and I pretty much wore the
local wargames crowd out. I tried to run a game of it
at our local group a couple of months ago and only two
guys showed up. I had toyed around with a WWII version
and a Korea version, but the amount of time and effort
to be put in on it, plus finding someone to playtest
it was just beyond an old fart. Fortunately folks like
Trent (Trent Burg from
WarbirdsinMiniature.com are picking up on the system and have the
passion for it.
I have read your review of Warbirds in Miniature. The World War
2 spinoff of Blue Max. What was your impression when you first
saw/played Warbirds?
I first played it at Little Wars in 05 and again this year. It
changed a bit, becoming "smoother" and more intuitive.
It is a really good simulation of WWII air war. Plays
quickly and has a good feel. Lets you play the game
without having to learn to fly the plane, like most of
the other games make you do. That has always been my
complaint with other air games. I recall the SPI Air
War game in which you not only had to learn, and it
was a steep learning curve, to fly the plane, but
learn to fly the missles you shot. Red Baron is much
the same way, as is Wings of Steel. It takes several
games to learn to fly the aircraft to the point where
you might get a shot. Trent usually runs a game where
bombers are heading to or from a target. That puts
targets out for interceptors and makes targets of the
interceptors for the defending fighters. That means
everybody has a chance to shoot at something. And that
means fun.
Thanks again for your response Phil
Not a problem, Johann. I've enjoyed it.
Thanks Phil, hope to see you in the air at a Con sometime! Hmmmm... Little Wars eh? Must put that one on my calendar...
Johann