Tafl Champions: Ancient Chess

Hi, everyone.

My name is James Battersby and I'm the Founder & Director of Gritstone Games. I'm actually a player of Chess.com but with my personal account, rather than this newly formed work account. If you'll spare me a moment I'd like to pitch to you my Indiegogo campaign for game I'm in the process of remastering - if this inappropriate for this forum I apologise and will happily remove this thread.

Back in 2021 I release a game called Tafl Champions: Ancient Chess - it's currently available on Steam, Google Play and the Apple App Store. It allows you play what some consider to be the precursor to Chess, Tafl (an old Norse word for table). The rules are far simpler, games typically last between 5-15 minutes but one of it's great selling points I think is that there are regional variants because, the Vikings finding writing tiresome it would seem, passed on the idea of the game by word of mouth... likely with a beer in hand!

The current game has one such version called Tablut which originates from Lapland (coincidentally near where my half Swedish ancestry is from) as it was the most (eventually) documented version available.

The game in 2021 was actually an experiment for some tech I was building for other projects - it was a successful test and I moved on. However every day since launch more and more players have registered to play. So I've decided to do a remaster of the game for launch in Q1 of 2026 with new and improved features such as an AI to play against, more versions plus events and competitions to get involved with. I'll also be looking to extend it to more storefronts and platforms.

If you're interested in helping out you can check out the Indiegogo campaign (links aren't allowed, search for Tafl Champions on Indiegogo and it should appear) - any help is greatly appreciated, whether that's making a contribution yourself or sharing it with people who you think might be interested.

Once again, I appreciate that this looks like an attention grabbing first post and I'll silence it if warranted but I felt I had to at least try. Please feel free to ask questions - I'm happy to discuss the project!

Thanks for your time and consideration!