Ohm’s Quest is a steampunk-inspired cubical gadget that acts as a form of escape sport console. You’ll be able to scan an NFC-enabled card on a facet of the dice, and it begins a brand new story with interactive challenges that you must remedy as a crew.
Whereas we don’t cowl board video games fairly often on TechCrunch, there was one thing enjoyable about Ohm’s Quest once I talked with the crew behind it. This venture sits on the intersection of escape rooms, board video games and tech creativity.
The crew already launched preorders on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. It raised €230,000 from greater than a thousand backers and it expects to ship the sport in early 2024. The starter package at present prices $249.
“We design audio tales by which you’re the hero. You play along with a crew towards the story. Consequently, there are characters within the story who want your assist to unravel issues,” co-founder and CTO Allison Klopp informed me.
And the interface with the sport is these cubes pictured above. You get two cubes within the field and you’ll join them with a cable — they impart wirelessly however there are a number of slots that will probably be used in another way relying on the story. On one facet of the dice, there’s a management panel with LED-enabled buttons and a directional joystick and a dial.
There’s a speaker to listen to the story in addition to a built-in accelerometer. On one other facet, there’s a tiny show that can be utilized to show messages or the time remaining earlier than one thing dramatic occurs.
Picture Credit: Ohm’s Quest
“As these interfaces come with none context, we add context with cardboard parts, akin to playing cards, instruction manuals, sport boards,” co-founder and CEO Etienne Pouget informed me. Some playing cards have an NFC tag, which implies that the dice also can obtain some info from particular playing cards.
Some challenges contain sound mixing, fixing a labyrinth, asking inquiries to potential murderers utilizing playing cards, passing a chemical factor from one dice to a different, and so forth.
It’s a {hardware}/software program play and Ohm’s Quest expects to ship a brand new story each month when the cubes can be found. The crew can also be engaged on a cellular app in an effort to purchase new tales and switch them to the dice.
Some tales will probably be purely digital — you’ll be capable of purchase them at house and print the directions to play them. Different tales will include new equipment — sport board, collectible figurines and playing cards.
Ohm’s Quest additionally hopes that it may possibly create a neighborhood of gamers round its sport. There will probably be a creator mode in order that essentially the most enthusiastic gamers can design their very own tales. The Ohm’s Quest crew might then work with an illustrator to create playing cards for these tales — story creators could be compensated.
As you possibly can see, the crew behind Ohm’s Quest has loads of inventive concepts for its puzzle-meet-story platform. There may very well be new cubes sooner or later as properly with new interplay strategies. “The one we’re dreaming of is a dice with an olfactory interface to create investigations utilizing scents,” Pouget mentioned.
Picture Credit: Ohm’s Quest
