Production: Boards and stands
over 3 years ago – Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 05:12:55 AM

We have been postponing this update for some time, because we were waiting for the boards to arrive. All 2000 boards (as we ordered) were completed about 15 days ago, but the transport of the first quantity of 500 pieces was organized just today.

The boards are double-sided, with the sea surface on the back side. We did not make a prototype of such a board, so we, the authors, saw it for the first time.

All boards are immediately packed in foil in our workshop.

In general, production is going according to plan. The most important component that needs to be done are the aircraft stands. We promised that the stands would be made of transparent plastic, and the aircraft tokens would be white and black. Due to unsatisfied experience, we decided to change the company for making plastic injection tools. We hired the company "Savić rent&plast" from Užice (a city about 190 km from Belgrade). We expected to receive trial castings within 45 to 60 days, but everything was done in 25 days. We immediately ordered a total of 500 000 pieces: transparent, white and black and another 14 000 in other colors (for sale through our website). In record time, all these stands have already been produced and delivered! The quality of the plastic is excellent. Using a precision weighing scale in our workshop, almost all the stands have already been counted.

We promised to provide wooden cubes instead of cardboard sliders (the first stretch goal). It is not possible to get them in Serbia, so we planned to import them from China. They can be found on the Internet (Ali express and similar sites) at different prices. As we need over 200 000 pieces, we were convinced that we would find a collaborator in China who would be able to send them to us at a good price. However, it turned out that the prices of these cubes are unrealistic. Also, the price of transport (due to the corona epidemic) is much higher than before. When the costs of customs are added to all that - the total price significantly exceeds our expectations. So we decided on another investment - we ordered an injection molding tool for such plastic cubes. In a very short time, the company "Savić rent&plast" made that tool as well! We received trial castings and immediately ordered a series of 270 000 pieces, which is almost done. We expect to receive them during the next week. Due to technological reasons, the cubes are hollow on one side.

The photos show test molds of the cubes in black. For the serial production, we decided to make all cubes in dark gray, instead of red and green. Investing money in another tool is a big expense for us, but we think it’s a good strategic move because those cubes will be used in most of our future games as well. We assume that such cubes will sell well through our website for the needs of other authors and board game manufacturers. The quality is better compared to wooden cubes.

In addition to the listed elements, some more have been done. We will only mention the boxes of Important Aircraft Supplement expansion.

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Finally, let us mention one project on Kickstarter whose authors are our friends. It is a game "March of the Drina - WW1".

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/princepsgames/march-on-the-drina-ww1

The theme of the game is the battles in the Balkans during the First World War. For the needs of the domestic market, a series of this game in Serbian language was produced in Forsage Games workshop.

Start of production
over 3 years ago – Wed, Aug 19, 2020 at 09:36:34 PM

The main survey period on the BackerKit platform has ended. Some new backers appeared, so now there are a total of 927. During the campaign on Kickstarter, less than 58,000 dollars were collected, and now we've got another 60,000! Since some backers have not yet responded to the survey, they have the opportunity to do so in the coming period, which means the total amount will probably exceed $ 120,000!

This is an incredible success for our small company and we thank all the backers who supported us. We achieved all this without serious marketing solutions. We are glad that the bakers around the world have recognized the quality of the game and we will do our best to justify the indicated trust.

We are already working hard on the realization of this project. We have raised enough money to be able to finance all our obligations from all our projects without any problems. So far, we have rented two workshops (plus one small warehouse), and now we have bought another one. It will house a large hydraulic knife (cutter) for paper, which we will also buy. There will be some more machines and tools that we purchased earlier (we will publish the pictures in one of our next updates). We have hired another worker for production. In this way, our production capacities have significantly increased.

The prototype and the trial series had airplane pieces printed on self-adhesive paper, which is laminated. Already during the campaign on Kickstarter, we decided to use a much higher quality material for serial games, which is PVC foil. New material and digital printing (instead of the previously planned offset printing) raise the cost of production, but in return the high quality of all pieces is obtained. We performed a test - for several months now, one sample of such pieces and dice has been exposed to the sun. The other sample was in a glass of water all that time. The test result is great - the dice and pieces look like they have just been printed, with no indication of unsticking!

In order to speed up the production of these stickers, we also bought a professional cutter, which we will use to cut the printed aircraft in our workshop.

During the campaign, we received a lot of praise for the quality of the plane's drawings, but the backers asked us to show the same type of aircraft in different color schemes. We are working on it right now, which takes time, but also gives us great pleasure. Here are a few pictures, and on our facebook profile you can see all the planes drawn and painted so far:  https://www.facebook.com/forsagegames/

The box and board for the basic game will be made in the printing house "Inprint" from Čačak (they made boxes and boards for Tank Chess), while the boxes for all expansions will be made in our workshop. The first in the series will be the Important Aircraft Supplement expansion box. We have already received punched cardboards for boxes of all expansions.

We also got all the dice we need.

What we worked on the most was writing a new updated version of the rules. As we announced during the campaign, we introduced the rule that airplanes have different flight ceilings, as well as acrobatic flight elements. The text of the rules has been sent for proofreading the English version and for translation into 8 more languages. It is only left to make the final images and to write a scenario in which the main role is played by torpedo bombers. Here are some screenshots:

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In the coming time, we have a lot of work to do on the realization of this project. We also need to equip and put into operation a new workshop that will speed up the entire production process. We will inform the bakers about the progress, but only when we have several important steps to announce, because even writing updates takes precious time. In any case, everything is going according to plan for now and we believe that it will be the same in the future.

Order lock - August 15th
over 3 years ago – Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 01:19:22 AM

The orders in BackerKit will be locked in three days (August 15). The credit cards will be charged a couple of days after locking orders. All bakers should fill out a survey in which they will give us their address and pay postage for the ordered items. Some expansions and add-ons can also be ordered. If you want to make changes to your order, you should do it before locking.

If some backers don't answer the survey now, they will be able to do it later (those orders will not be locked yet).

We have already started working on the realization of this project. We have procured or ordered some machines and tools that we need for production. Writing the final version of the rule is almost complete. We will announce a new update with more detailed information soon.

Bonus stretch goals unlocked!
almost 4 years ago – Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 02:04:19 PM

Pre-order campaign on the BackerKit platform has been going on for several days now. Most bakers have already filled out the survey. We are glad that many of you have ordered one or more expansions and some of the add-ons.

All three bonus stretch goals were scored ($75000, $80000 and $85000), which are torpedo bombers.

Since the board got the other side (water surface) as a stretch goal already during the Kickstarter campaign, it is imposed on us as a task to write at least one scenario in which torpedo bombers will play the main role.

At the request of some bakers, we also promised that individual planes of some types would be differently colored. We have started working on it and you can see several drawings already done.

The orders in the pledge manager will be locked on August 15. Until then, all backers should fill out the surveys ( https://age-of-dogfights-ww1.backerkit.com/ ). We have already started preparations for production. Some more elements will be improved, follow our updates.

Pledge manager and a new expansion: Aircraft from 1920s
almost 4 years ago – Wed, Jul 08, 2020 at 02:31:45 AM

The pledge manager has started - the surveys are sent and the pre-order store is open. It will last until August 15th, when the orders will be locked (backers should choose their add-ons by then).

https://age-of-dogfights-ww1.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

Age of Dogfights: 1920s

The basic game, with stretch goals, contains as many as 40 types of aircraft (78 pieces) from the three most important aviation from WW1.

The main Expansion contains another 27 types of aircraft (54 airplane pieces + 20 balloons / airships) from 6 countries.

During the campaign, we asked the backers if they would like an add-on (expansion) -  "Additional Aircraft Types" that would contain another 40 different types of aircraft (80 pieces) which would cover almost all aircraft that participated in the war. The final choice of aircraft types is made based on your votes.

Some backers have suggested that we make an add-on that would contain only the most important types of aircraft, but in slightly larger numbers, so that some historical battles could be simulated. The name of this expansion is the "Important Aircraft Supplement" and it contains 18 types of aircraft (54 pieces).

In addition, there is a mini expansion - a set of 6 types of aircraft (12 pieces) used by the Ottoman Empire.

So the main game and expansions contain a really large number of aircraft types from the WW1 period. The development of aviation continued even after the end of the war, but not at such a fast pace. During the twenties of the last century, new types of planes got more and more powerful engines, so their maximum speeds and ceilings became higher. Beside that, almost all other characteristics were at the level of aircraft that participated in the war (It was not until the 1930s that airplanes received significant changes in construction: single-winged aircraft dominated, cockpits were closed, the landing gear was retractable, etc., which is why their characteristics were drastically improved). Therefore, aircraft created during the twenties are very similar in characteristics to WW1 participating airplanes. That's why we decided to offer "AoD: 1920s" (expansion for "AoD:WW1"). The list of aircraft that are in this expansion can be found in description of this add-on in BackerKit:

https://age-of-dogfights-ww1.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders/246448

We have selected aircraft from 11 countries that we believe were the most significant in that period. The expansion contains 41 types of aircraft (82 pieces). Germany was not allowed to have an air force, but its factories produced airplanes for other countries. We chose two types of aircraft that were made for the USSR. In this expansion, three types of aircraft from the Dutch Fokker factory, which produced aircraft for Germany during WW1, now have Dutch markings. USA, which bought almost all fighter planes from Europe during WW1, now has become one of the most important aircraft manufacturers. It is interesting that Soviet planes were among the best from that period. Czechoslovakia and Japan also had great airplanes... In general, the choice of planes is large and we think that gamers will be very interested in fighting battles in various combinations. There were no wars between big countries then, so players will have to decide which planes will participate on which side. You can, of course, combine airplanes from the basic game (and other expansions) with airplanes from the '20s. In addition to describing the characteristics of the aircraft, the brochure will also contain a couple of scenarios.

Since the planes from the 1920s were faster than their predecessors, many of them will have a speed of "8" or "9". They flew at higher altitudes, so the expansion will contain another altitude level - L7 (26 stands: 10 x L6 and 16 x L7).