I’ve seen some fancy proposals for reinventing the gaming table. I’ve seen clever technology and crowdfunding projects that wanted hundreds of thousands. London-based Theorycraft is on Kickstarter to raise £150.
The project has been live for a few days and has 8 backers at the time of writing, which means they’ve more than doubled the stretch goal. HitBits, I think, have found a straightforward and cost-effective idea. These are remote-controlled LEDs in squares you can put your minis on. Job done. You can find out more via the pitch page.
The idea is that the colours are an easy way to tell what’s up with a model. The colour might show which faction it’s in, whether the character has a status effect or is just low on health.
Theoycraft suggest it’s a way to ease DM’s workload and make aid new or nervous players.
Do you need fancy software to control all of this? Nope. HitBits just use a standard light remote and if you’ve looked for Christmas lights or anything like that on Amazon before you’ll surely have seen the very model already.
I’m not sure how many remotes you need, though, or if it’s not one remote per block, how the remote knows which light-up base to use.
“But how is this possible?” you say… “Easy” we respond. “Our HitBit: Digital Miniature Bases contain the latest in micro-sized TT-RPG gaming technology and are controlled by our wireless remotes for your gaming ease. Alter the health status of one or all gaming pieces in play, quickly and easily at the press of a button!”
If you pledge £12 or more, Theorycraft will reward you with one IR remote and one medium-sized HitBits base.
At £18, you’ll be thanked with two such bases and a remote. Both tiers are worth about 40% off the retail price.
£30 means 4 bases and a remote while £40 increases that to 5 medium bases and adds one large base.
Later tiers are £40, £65 and £120, which also bring in huge HitBit bases.
Impressively, Theoycraft estimate that their HitBits Digital Miniature Bases will ship this year and in September.
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