Tabletop roleplaying video games are all about exploring the worlds created within the collective imaginations of gamers and recreation masters. As such, many of the recreation occurs solely throughout the gamers’ heads. However some real-world visuals can actually improve the expertise. The traditional instance of that’s the miniature, which could symbolize a participant character, an enemy, or anything on the planet. Nevertheless, if you consider it, cube rolls are as essential as all the things else. With that in thoughts, Jonathan Diamond gave those rolls life by using dice to control LED lighting effects.
Diamond’s Pixels Cube Field is — because the title suggests — a field for Pixels “good cube.” These are fairly unbelievable in their very own proper, as a result of they’re packed stuffed with LEDs, sensors, and Bluetooth connectivity. They will do actually neat issues like gentle up and ship cube roll knowledge to a participant’s smartphone for logging. In concept, it ought to even be doable to make use of the cube in on-line recreation periods. However when gaming IRL, most individuals aren’t going to need to have their telephones out and they also’re solely going to see results on the cube’s built-in LEDs. Diamond’s Pixels Cube Field has an even bigger array of LEDs, so gamers get slightly present with each roll to essentially get everybody excited.
Think about, as an illustration, that you simply roll a nat 20. Very thrilling! The Pixels Cube Field can acknowledge that and present slightly celebratory gentle present. Conversely, within the occasion of a vital failure, it may well play a extra ominous LED impact. It additionally has animations for rolling, to point out a 1D graph of earlier rolls, and extra.
That’s all doable because of a LILYGO T-QT Professional, which is slightly ESP32-S3-based growth board with a small built-in coloration show and buttons. The ESP32-S3 has Bluetooth/BLE functionality, which is the way it connects to the Pixels cube to obtain data on rolls. Primarily based on the these rolls and the present settings, it then controls the animations taking part in on a string of WS2812b individually addressable RGB LEDs utilizing the favored WLED library. Diamond put these elements right into a small jewellery field repurposed as a cube field, however any case with sufficient room would work.
Pixels cube are at the moment solely obtainable for pre-order, however anybody who’s fortunate sufficient to get their palms on some will most likely need to duplicate Diamond’s undertaking. Fortunately, he was sort sufficient to post his code and a guide.
