Such was my response when I caught wind of Microsoft's upcoming Crimson Skies. All I had to hear before I started pining away with lovesickness was this: It's an air-combat game set in a speculative 1930s. It's got slick, tricked-out prop aircraft, aircraft-carrier zeppelins, a nutty pulp-fiction storyline, and - and this was the clincher for me - a '30s-era Big Band/swing soundtrack.

The universe of Crimson Skies is the brainchild of Jordan Weisman and his pals at the FASA Corporation, the tabletop gaming folks who brought the BattleTech and Shadowrun gaming universes to the world. According to Weisman, founder of FASA and now the creative director of the Microsoft games division, Crimson Skies was a labor of love, a project developed after hours by Weisman and the FASA crew. The game began as a tactical board game of air-to-air combat, similar in style and mechanics to the popular Car Wars board game. You chose an aircraft, outfitted it with weapons, and then dueled on hex-grid maps using an elegant set of rules for fire and movement. The board game was published in 1998 and has since sold more than 10,000 copies - a decent showing in the ailing tabletop gaming market.

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