Tank Chess (reprint)

Update #34
11 months ago – Mon, Jul 21, 2025 at 05:25:57 PM

As we have announced in the last few updates, we are in a difficult situation, but we are trying to send all the remaining packages in the coming period. In order to be able to fulfill our obligations, it is imperative that we keep the Forsage Games company liquid. The most obvious reason is that we as a company have a contract with UPS to send packages at relatively favorable prices. Otherwise, sending packages would be too expensive and unfeasible. Therefore, maintaining the liquidity of the company is a priority for us at the moment.

Our previous Kickstarter project (the board game Urban Battle) did not raise significant funds ($12000 on Kickstarter + $3000 on BackerKit). At the beginning of the campaign, we promised that this project would be completed on time or earlier. We are keeping that promise, the entire production of the Urban Battle games will soon be finished (several months ahead of schedule). After the production is complete, we will send packages to all backers.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1732812836/urban-battle/posts/4430737

The money raised in that campaign (Urban Battle) has provided work for our company in the past two months. In order to maintain liquidity for the coming period, we are forced to launch another campaign soon - it is a board game called Air Cargo Transport.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2078586680/air-cargo-transport-board-game-and-posters

At this moment, this campaign is needed for our company's survival. We hope that its success would give us, the authors, time to devote to projects where we have a delay in sending packages.

The current status of the "Tank Chess reprint" project is that part of the packages have already been sent (to those backers who ordered only the basic game and Portable). There are only a few elements left that need to be produced to complete all other variants of the game and the expansions. We mostly have the materials for that, but the problem is that we have run out of money to send the packages.

In the AoD:WWII project, we asked backers for monetary donations to continue the process of sending the packages, and that is working for now. In that project, asking for donations is justified, because the game has become significantly richer and more expensive due to the volume of work invested and additional elements. But there is an alternative option: to order some additional expansions, after which we immediately send the package. It is a much more complex and extensive project that contains as many as 8 expansions (last year we added 3 more "thematic expansions", so there are 11 in total) and many different add-ons, and in which it was planned from the start that the packages would be sent in two waves.

We, the authors, are currently trying to avoid asking for donations from you, the backers of this project. In the previous update, we announced that we have a plan to fully fulfill our obligations to the backers of the "Tank Chess reprint" project. We did not provide any details, because we believe that a partial presentation of the plan (without visuals) would be counter-productive.

However, we believe that further delaying the publication of that plan would not be correct, and now we will try to present only its outlines in a short way:

In the Tank Chess project, we have so far offered the Standard edition (which contains two boards 16×16 and 20×20 squares), Portable (board 12×12) and Extended (board 24×24). Together with several expansions (Fun Set, Fun Set Plus, Airborne) this game has over 30 different types of tank pieces and a dozen different types of obstacles. The basic game on its own, and especially in combination with expansions, provides an incredible number of modifications and the possibility to play completely different games for many years. With that said, one can come to the conclusion that there is no room for further development of this game.

However, while working on the Urban Battle project, we got an idea for a whole series of "special editions" of Tank Chess (for now we will call them that way, we will announce the real name of those editions soon). These are not expansions, but new stand-alone editions of the game. This idea did not arise from the need to make anything new so we could have something to offer backers, on the contrary, we believe this is a strategic direction for the further development of this game, which will have several separate Kickstarter campaigns in the coming years. We are sure that this series will increase the popularity of this game.

So far, we have concepts for as many as 15 different titles of these "special editions". Of course we can't finish them all at once, but the plan is to do 3 to 4 titles in the first round. We can do that job in 5 to 6 weeks. But, I emphasize, the current priority is the coming campaign for the Air Cargo Transport game. We should then finish production of expansions already ordered during the 2023 campaign (which will take 2 to 3 weeks). Only then can we devote ourselves to work on these "special editions". When we starting working on it, we will publish an update with more information.

The concrete realization of that plan would look like this: first, we would make prototypes and present 3 to 4 titles. Then we would open a new pre-order page on the BackerKit platform. Then, the process of ordering, production and sending the packages would run in parallel, which should take 6 to 10 weeks. Any backer who decides to pay for at least one copy of one of the offered "special editions" would receive a package with that game and everything they ordered during the 2023 campaign within 7 to 10 days (similar to the current process in Age of Dogfights: WWII project). We are aware that there are those among you who will not want to pay anything extra, but we also believe that there will be those who will order 2 or more titles, which will provide the money to send all the remaining packages.

At first reading, all this may seem unrealistic, but we are sure that the full presentation of those "special editions" will change your mind and that most backers will follow our plan.

Since we cannot work on several projects at the same time, we are currently focused on starting the campaign for the game Air Cargo Transport. We hope that some of you will support our new project, thereby contributing to our faster financial recovery.

Short update
12 months ago – Mon, Jun 09, 2025 at 01:13:31 PM

Update #32
about 1 year ago – Fri, May 02, 2025 at 12:09:26 PM

As we announced in the previous update, we are releasing a new update with more information. We were unable to respond to comments from the previous update, please understand. We want to thank everyone who has supported us, and we also understand all the criticism that has been directed at us.

As we said in the previous update, the topic of this is the financial situation. In particular, during the implementation of the Tank Chess (reprint) project, there was an increase in shipping prices, but this is tolerable and is not the cause of our problems. The main cause is the problems that arose during the realization of the Age of Dogfights: WWII project and they complicated our financial situation. You can read more about the causes of problems in the AoD:WWII project here:

Update #60 on AoD2

In short, there was more work required to design the game rulebook. We, the authors, did not estimate well at the beginning the scope of the work and the time we needed to complete it. Also, our work was less efficient due to stress of working under constant pressure, which all in all led to a big delay in the realization of that project, which resulted in a drastic increase in costs.

In the aforementioned update on the AoD2 project, we explained the financial situation in detail to the backers and suggested how they can help us solve the problem with additional payments (as several options). Many backers have supported us and we have already received a lot of payments, so from Monday the Age of Dogfights: WWII game packages will continue to be sent.

In the past period, some smaller projects that were created in the meantime we managed to fulfill in time or ahead of time (Carom Golf and Carom Mini Golf). But unfortunately, the problems that arose in the AoD:WWII project carried over to the 'Tank Chess reprint' project. We apologize to the backers that this situation has arisen.

For a long time, we believed that we would be able to make up for the lack of money on our own, so in Update #28 (from January 18) we announced accelerated sending of packages for the next period. Unfortunately, due to various circumstances (among other things, due to the political situation in Serbia - there is currently a semi-emergency situation due to student demonstrations against corruption, so economic activity is also limited) the jobs announced at the time have not yet been realized (they are still on stand-by), so we did not earn the money we expected. Unfortunately the Kickstarter project (Urban Battle) which we believed would significantly improve our financial situation was disappointing - only $12000 was collected.

Due to the above reasons, we have to temporarily stop the process of sending packages with Tank Chess games and accompanying expansions. After a short rest, which is necessary for us now, we will fully dedicate ourselves to finishing the entire production of all games and expansions from this project. Some versions have already been completed, and for everything else we have acquired all the material. It remains for us, the authors, to complete a few more files that will go to print right after that. Our colleagues will assemble all the elements into finished games and expansions in a relatively short time. We will inform you in a separate update when the production is finished. We won't give final estimates now, but production should be completed probably in 5-6 weeks.

After that, we need some time to prepare and publish an update in which we will give a fair proposal on how to solve the financial problem and continue the process of sending packages. Please be patient, we will do our best to complete this project. We believe that the backers will be satisfied with the proposed solution, but we ask you to give us some time so that our work will be without pressure, and therefore more efficient.

Update #31
about 1 year ago – Sun, Apr 20, 2025 at 02:55:24 AM

We intended to post this update 3-4 days ago, but both authors got a virus, we have a high temperature and we are taking antibiotics. In that update we were supposed to show the final design of all the info cards and the final rules for the Fun Set Plus and Airborne expansions. That design work is mostly done, but we don't want to publish pages that aren't finished.

This update has another topic in which we present only part of the problems (health) that have been following us, the authors, for several years. Soon (in a few days, at the moment we cannot say anything more precise) we will publish a second update in which we will present other problems (financial) with proposals for a solution.

The cause of the problems that accompany us is our desire to significantly expand the Age of Dogfights WWII game compared to the version that was presented during the Kickstarter campaign in 2021. The volume of work has increased more than 5 times, which has created huge obligations, stress and, as a result, health problems. You can read more about it in the update we just published on the Kickstarter project Age of Dogfights WWII.

Although it took us much, much longer than planned, we can be satisfied with the reactions of those backers who have already received and tried the basic game AoD:WWII, which can be seen on the BGG page.

Unfortunately, the prolonged work on writing rules under stressful conditions created many problems, primarily health and financial. These problems did not affect the realization of some of our smaller projects (Carom Mini Golf and Carom Golf), but, unfortunately, it did affect this one.

We will do our best to ensure that all backers from this project receive everything they ordered and paid for. We hope that you will support us to overcome the problems so that we can fulfill all our obligations to you by working at full capacity.

Shipping, production and announcement of a new project
about 1 year ago – Fri, Mar 14, 2025 at 04:42:47 PM

Forsage Games is still working rapidly on several "fronts". As we announced in the previous update, the production of all games from our latest project (Carom Golf) has been completed and in about ten days all packages will be sent.

Carom Golf update

Packages are also being sent to backers from our older projects:

Panzer Strike: Western Front 2 update

Age of Dogfights: WWII update

Regarding this project, we sent packages to the backers who ordered Tank Chess Portable and Basic game options. Now it's Tank Chess Expanded in turn. We did all the boards a long time ago, and now we've printed the boxes. In parallel with it, we also printed boxes for the Fun Set Plus expansion and the Airborne mini-expansion.

In the coming period, we will continue to work hard to fulfill our obligations to all backers and we will regularly inform you about the progress.

New project: Urban Battle

Thanks to the fact that we invested money in production capacities in a timely manner (see Update #54 on AoD2) we managed to survive as a company during a long period when we, the authors, were too busy working on an extremely demanding project such as the game Age of Dogfights: WWII. Producing board games for other authors and publishers brought us the necessary money, but due to our long-term plans, it is still necessary for us to occasionally launch new projects on Kickstarter.

The campaign for the game Urban Battle was planned for the period September–October 2024. It is a simple game that is very suitable for production because it has very few elements. The project was 90% ready in the summer of 2024, but we decided to postpone the campaign for two reasons:

1. First to focus on older projects in which there is a delay in delivering packages.

2. To start the campaign when we are 100% ready, so we don't end up in a situation where we are late with the realization of the project due to some unplanned circumstances.

In the meantime, many ideas have "settled", so we as authors are really satisfied with how we designed the whole project.

As said above, it is a simple game that by all criteria falls into the 'EasyPlay' category (which is indicated on the game box). The game was created by compiling the best solutions from several of our earlier tank games (Tank Chess, Panzer Strike and an early concept predating both of them). The emphasis is on simplicity, not on some realistic depiction of historical games. There will be several variants of the game, offered at very favorable prices considering the contents. Depending on the variant, the game contains 50 to 100 tank pieces, with which very diverse scenarios can be played. The time required to prepare the game is extremely short: only 1 to 3 minutes.

The rules are short and simple, with many illustrated examples. There are three game modes, with minor differences in the rules but the character of the game depends very much on the chosen mode:

1. BASIC MODE – relaxed, fluid game, with the influence of luck (with dice)
2. ABSOLUTE MODE – without the luck factor (no dice), more strategic gameplay (this mode is quite similar to the game Tank Chess)
3. REALISTIC MODE – more realistic firing angles, requires using a ruler

As always, we have prepared interesting gifts for early pledge, as well as for our repeating backers (from any of our earlier projects). The campaign should start in the next 7 to 15 days, if you are interested go to the link below and click 'Notify me on launch'.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1732812836/urban-battle

We sent several trial edition copies of the game to various reviewers around the world. Here are some quotes from their posts:

"Beautiful components, packed with tons of goodies, easy to learn and play, fun games, family friendly." — Richard Martin (Armchair General)

"It's taking Tank Chess to the next logical step, to an actual battlefield", ... "I like the game. I think it's a nice streamlined fun game that you can sit down, play out in an evening without a whole lot of huge thought process behind it." — Nate Rogers (TheGimpyGamer)

(Trial edition mostly contains tank pieces in some camo colors, such as gray and olive green, but in the meantime we decided to make them red and blue in serial production, for several reasons.)

Just as we made the gameplay itself as simple as possible (EasyPlay), we also envisioned the game to be simple to produce. We created a detailed plan for the production of every single element of the game. On the Kickstarter page, that plan will be presented with all the details: a unified boards for all variants of the game, a choice of colors for tank figurines, a plan in case there are few (100-300) and in case there are many (> 1000) backers; places where we will acquire material and possibly new 3D printers... Having learned from the experiences of some previous projects, we believe that a detailed production plan is necessary for the successful and timely realization of the project.