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Tuesday, July 1, 2014

A Kickstarter I WANT, But Can't Justify: GameChanger - Virtual Tabletop Gaming Surface

My God but I want this. GameChanger is a virtual table top for your actual table.

I'm in love. Or lust.

My wife would kill me, I have no use for it, but it doesn't stop the want.

From the blurb:
A high-quality, durable, multi-touch LCD Gaming Surface for RPGs, Miniatures and other tabletop gaming. 
The GameChanger is the first affordable, durable and widely available gaming surface.  Using recent price breakthroughs in LED panels, touch technology and mini-computers, gamers can at last take advantage of the latest technology, in an easily upgradeable and affordable way.  
We've made a huge ruggedised iPad to use for gaming —for about the same price or less! 
Now your favourite adventures (readily available on pdf or scanned) can be presented quickly and easily using whichever virtual table top, or any other tools you use for your games. 

9 comments:

  1. If it works as well as advertised, it's well worth the price of 12-20 gaming books, if you are a regular collector like you are, Erik. However it seems too good to be true.

    Wait a couple of years and see what develops.

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    1. my wife, God bless her, has patience for my hobby - but this would bring us to counseling ;)

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  2. This is definitely a product I will buy when it exists. But until then it sounds like a pipe dream to me.

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  4. Any really big tablet could do this with the right software. There are major players in the tabletop surface field (notice that word "surface" sound familiar?). The lower end kit options look the wisest to me.

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  5. It's definitely a cool item, but I think they will have a hard time hitting their goal as hardware kickstarters are a more difficult sell due to the high initial entry costs.

    @JDJarvis -- Actually, you don't even need a large multi-touch display.There are touch screen "overlays" that can turn a regular LCD monitor into a touch screen. They are cheap up to about 22 inches. Beyond that size, the overlays get expensive quickly. I'm not certain how they will pull off touch capability on a large monitor at their target price. The wholesale price of the overlay kit may be somewhat cheaper.

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  6. Wouldn't it be cheaper to get an HD projector, mount it above your gaming table and hook it in to a PC or tablet? I love this idea, but like you my wife would kill me.

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  7. +TimothyBrannan -- It's not about the image itself... There are tons of bloggers who've done a DIY projector from above, or LCD TV mounted below. The interesting part is the touch-screen component that allows you to manipulate the screen using the screen.

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  8. I've looked over that KS a few times. Very intriguing.

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