Kickstarter’s Boogie Dice Can Roll Themselves

Boogie Dice wants Kickstarter backers to roll dice by snapping fingers, clapping hands, or simply hitting the table.

It’s pretty amazing to consider that humble tabletop dice are perhaps the oldest gaming aids on the planet. But is there a way to improve on perfection? According to Boogie Dice, there is: Letting the dice roll themselves. Due to arrive on Kickstarter tomorrow, Boogie Dice’s products are built around sets of programmable, self-rolling dice. All that’s needed to activate them is sound – be it clapping your hands, snapping your fingers, or outright hitting the table.

Each individual Boogie Dice contains a vibration motor, sound and motion detectors, LED multi-color lights, and a buzzer. Also tucked within is a programmable microprocessor, which can be accessed via smartphone app. This lets you tweak features like roll length, LED light color, sound sensitivity, and other game-specifc features.

“As a game designer, Boogie Dice is an exciting new gaming accessory that inspires creative and unique gameplay mechanics,” Saar Shai, Boogie Dice’s lead game designer explained. “I can program the dice with all sorts of parameters and bring layers of strategy, unpredictability and fun to my games. The self-rolling mechanism also adds a new dimension that gamers love!”

Boogie Dice can be used in place of any traditional d6, but the company isn’t just producing dice – it’s also building games around them. Bots Battleground, for example, is a card game which transforms the Boogie Dice charging station into an arena. Players refer to their hand for tactics, while the self-rolling dice determine which players can attack and randomly assign round length. Boogie Dice has another two tabletop games planned which will get Kickstarters in 2016, provided this campaign succeeds.

It’s unlikely players would completely replace their dice collections for Boogie Dice. There’s already a tactile pleasure in rolling dice, but imagine critically succeeding in a roll, cheering in success, and the sound triggers a critical failure. (Although on the other hand, imagine botching a roll, hitting the table, and making it a critical success!) Still, it’s a novel gimmick players certainly can enjoy around the gaming table. Provided you can convince everyone you didn’t program the dice to favor you, of course.

Boogie Dice will attempt to raise $50,000 on Kickstarter, with early backers getting their dice by Feb. 2016.

Source: Kickstarter