Downfall Interview: John Butterfield

 

Downfall is a two-player game on the conquest of the Third Reich in World War II. One player controls the Western Allies and the other the Soviet Union in their joint effort to destroy the Axis. Though the two players share the goal of defeating the Reich, each seeks a victory that favors their dominance in post-war Europe.

The rules and images shown here are not final

You can find it in P500

1-Who are you and your favourite wargames?

Hi,my name is John Butterfield. I’ve been designing games, mostly board war games, for over 40 years. My designs include, RAF, D-Day at Omaha Beach, Enemy Action: Ardennes, Ambush!and SpaceCorp. My most recently published game is Enemy Action; Kharkov, published in June by Compass Games. My favorite war games by others include Combat Commander, Polis and Triumph & Tragedy.

Currently I am completing the design of Downfall: Conquest of the Third Reich with GMT games.

2-Why did you decide to do this game?

Chad Jensen began the design of Downfall several years ago. Sadly, Chad passed away in 2019, leaving his epic masterpiece unfinished. I had seen the game evolve over the years while Chad and I worked on other projects together. After his passing, his wife Kai wanted to see the game finished, so I offered to complete the design. It has been an honor and a pleasure to work on this project with Kai.

We are currently finishing development of Downfall. Many game components are already in art production. I’ve provided you with images of the final art for the map and counters. These are collaborations between Chad Jensen and Mark Simonitch

3-What is Downfall about?

Downfall is a two-player game on the conquest of the Third Reich in World War II. The game begins at the high-water mark of Axis expansion in November 1942 and ends in May 1945 at Germany’s surrender. One player controls the Western Allies and the other the Soviet Union in their joint effort to destroy the Axis. Though the two players share the goal of defeating the Reich, each seeks a victory that favors their dominance in post-war Europe. The players control land units, air units, partisans, fleets, and submarines. On the east front, the land war sweeps from Stalingrad to Berlin; while the battle in the west combines land warfare, naval operations, amphibious invasions, and strategic warfare.

4-How do the Western Allied player and the Soviet player oppose each other?

The game has four factions, with each player controlling two factions:

-The Western player commands the Western Allies faction and the OKH faction, that is the German and minor Axis armies battling the Soviet Union in the east.

-The Soviet player commands the Soviet faction and the OKW faction, that is the German and Italian armies facing the Western allies in the west.

5-Can you talk about the game’s mechanics?

Gameplay is driven by Downfall’s innovative initiative system. Each of the four factions has its own initiative marker on the initiative track and its own set of order markers drawn from a shared pool. The faction whose marker has advanced the least on the track has the initiative; they get to choose an order, Pay its initiative cost by advancing their initiative marker, and perform the order. Then, the faction with the initiative based on the updated positions of the markers chooses the next order. There is no set sequence of play, no set player order, and no down time; initiative expenditures determine who goes next. The advancing of faction initativemarkers along the track also trigger strategic events, changes in weather, and advancement of game calendar.

Order markers include operational orders to move units and initiate combat, and general orders for recruitment, mechanization, partisan warfare, strategic warfare, and resource allocation between Axis factions. Each faction’s order markers differ, to reflect the capabilities and weaknesses of each.

Strategic event cards drive game mechanics such as distribution of Action cards, air support, supply checks, reinforcements, upgrades, status of minor allies and victory checks.

Action cards specific to each faction are randomly received and can be played to augment orders or gain advantages in combat.

6-What are the scenarios and length of the game?

Downfall is a large game, with a playing area of 34”x 44”ontwo full-size maps. Each complete cycle of the initiative trackby the factions’ initiative markers represents four months of time (onegame-turn). A game-turn takes about two hours to complete. The full campaign game (eight game-turns) can take up to 16 hours, depending on when Germany surrenders. Shorter scenarios start in the summer of 1943 (“Husky”) and the summer of 1944 (“Overlord”) taking about 11 and 6 hours respectively to complete.

7-Do you have another game/project in mind?

Yes I am currently working on several new game projects:

WWII Commander: Market Garden is the second volume in WWIIC series, following Battle of the Bulge for Compass games. It is a fast-playing simple wargame. Now in art production.

On Hell’s Highway is a detailed simulation of Operation Market-Garden to be published by New England Simulations. The new design is a revision and improvement of my older game Hell’s Highway. Now in playtesting.

VOYAGE is a solitaire space exploration game in which you command a surface team on planets and moons of other star systems. The design is new and is inspired by my old paragraph-driven game Voyage of the Pandora. Now in the design stage for GMT games.