Pixels are the most technology-filled dice we've ever seen: They light up with RGB LEDs and can send digital roll results wirelessly via Bluetooth , all supposedly without compromising the shape, weight, or usability you might expect from normal tabletop gaming dice. Most digital dice projects haven't been very impressive: They're comically oversized, require cables, are poorly balanced, or come in a single immutable color. We haven't confirmed it for ourselves yet, but the Pixels project promises to address all of those problems.
People like the idea: The Kickstarter campaign to fund the initial production run has amassed nearly a million dollars with 29 days to go. (Update: As of Thursday afternoon, it's at almost $2 million.)
By packing away all the electronics—charging coils, LEDs, Bluetooth—inside cast resin, the dice are a normal form factor and only slightly heavier than other resin or plastic dice while still being much lighter than stone or metal dice. They charge and are programmed wirelessly in a special case. They are… actually waterproof. They're even balanced, we're told, with the Kickstarter going to greath lengths—in a timeworn bit of dice showmanship—to show you that they're just as balanced as the competition.
I think the most appealing part of Pixel dice is the promise of easy digital integration. The dice know what they've landed on, so you can have the experience of rolling inside a virtual tabletop. For some, not rolling actual dice makes playing tabletop RPGs like D&D over the internet less fun. This might be one solution.
The dice were designed by Jean Simonet, an electrical engineer by training who used to work for Bethesda programming systems in games like Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Oblivion, and Skyrim. That does seem like an ideal set of skills to bring to this project.
As we said when we first saw these dice last year, the quest to put RGB lighting in everything continues. We shall yet conquer this mountain, and one day see the face of Big Ben, the peaks of the pyramids, the Great Wall of China, and the rest of the world ripple with the glory of customizable lighting patterns.
