Forsage Games Writes About Themselves and Their Games
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This is, as they, say straight from the horse's mouth:
In my childhood and youth, I did not play any board games, which at that time (1970-1990) were almost non-existent in my country (Yugoslavia). I entered the world of boardgaming in a completely different way. My parents were history professors, so I became interested in that field as well. I often examined historical atlases with my father, where the maps showed various phases of battles. I was fascinated by those blue and red arrows that showed the advances of individual armies, the closing of rings, breakthroughs through defense lines and the like... I was especially impressed by the Battle of Britain and that large table in Fighter Command where the girls moved markers representing individual British and German squadrons.
It was that table with markers that was my direct inspiration for the first game I came up with (1992). In the initial concept it was a pure air battle between two formations of fighter planes. In the next few years, the game became an air-naval military exercise for up to 6 players with aircraft carriers in the main role. At that time, there were no real publishers of board games in Serbia. Only in 1996, through a friend, I managed to find a company, Grafopapir (an importer and distributor of school and office materials), which wanted to publish the game. The game was given the commercial name 'Saratoga' and was accompanied by two smaller games (Saratoga on BGG). According to still unconfirmed data, it is the first original game released in Serbia by a local author. It is important to note that the Triangle system was designed for that game, which I later applied in my other war games.
The game was not a great commercial success, because it was too complex for the domestic market and it remained largely unrecognized. This did not discourage me, so I continued to design complex war games, but also simple family games. In the next few years, about 30 of my games were published for several other publishers in Serbia (Beoplast, Ponte Rosso, Brimaco).
I have also published several dozen board games on my own. Although more complex war games were produced (such as Harriers in Action or Naval Battle), the best selling ones were very simple games for the youngest audiences. Such a situation did not suit me as an author.
When my son Dragan joined me in game design, we improved our games significantly. To be able to market our original ideas, we realized that we had to try reaching board game audiences outside of Serbia. We contacted several dozen world publishers of board games, but none were open to fresh ideas that do not fit their existing templates.
Our dream gradually came true when we found out about Kickstarter, an opportunity to present our games directly to players around the world. We've achieved great success in our second Kickstarter project, with over 2000 backers (Tank Chess), despite not investing any funds in advertising. So far we had 10 campaigns on Kickstarter, some of which became real hits: Age of Dogfights WWI and WWII. Many reviews said that they are among the best aerial combat games.
After each campaign, we invested the funds in our own production capacities. Our workshop specializes in the production of small series of games, but in collaboration with large printing houses we are able to finalize large series of very demanding games. In addition to producing our own games, we have been successfully producing games for other authors and publishers from Serbia, the region and Europe for several years. During the production and implementation of some of our Kickstarter projects there were some ongoing problems and delays, but we always delivered rewards to all backers, often with significantly more content than what was presented during the campaign. We are always open to suggestions and feedback from gamers all around the world, which helps improve our games significantly.
As authors, we already have plans for several next projects. In addition to war-themed games, other games are also in plan, which we believe will gain great popularity as well.
P.S. the pre-launch page for Urban Battle is now activated (the campaign should start in about a week):
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1732812836/urban-battle
Here are some reviews I have done about their earlier games:
Age of Dogfights: WWI by Forsage Games - A Wargamers Needful Things
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