As I write this, the Nexus Infinity Dice Cube Spinny Thing Kickstarter is over 220% funded! Which is incredible by any measure, but maybe less so when you know the asking value was just $1,000 — quite low for something so technically complex that is promised to be in backer’s hands, in their choice of colors and dials for the sixteen faces, carved lovingly by hand from solid titanium blocks and polished with care by artisans insanely dedicated to creating heirloom pieces, by May of this year.
Usually, when there’s an asking price this low, it’s usually already available from Alibaba or Temu. But I could not find this exact piece either of those places, so, good on them. They aren’t drop shipping some rebranded stuff. Unfortunately, that’s the only possible way they could make it on time (and even then, it seems doubtful).
Anyway. Though I hadn’t seen them before, infinity cubes are an actual thing, and there’s a whole bunch of them. So, I bought one.
This beauty is made of eight interlinked cubes with the faces 19mm to a side, which is smaller than the Nexus Cube’s faces. The cubes are linked in the same way theirs is, and I can confirm that everything they show their prototype doing can be done with this cube as well. If the Nexus Cube is real, it can move like they show it moves.
I blame never having seen one before. I can admit when I am wrong.
But… what else can it do? Can it do the whole dice spinning thing?
Let’s talk about that. Let’s say that you’re a D&D player at the table, and I, the DM, ask you to roll, say, a d20. You spin hard, and then, as suggested by the sellers, tap it with your finder to bring it to a sudden stop. You then read the value.
Well, that’s nice. Leave aside the fact that you can probably get it to stop at any number you want if you spin it right, with a little practice. You can’t take your finger off without making the dial spin again. You can’t leave it on without accidentally changing the number. It’s essentially useless for its use case.
I searched around and found the files for a similarly flat infinity cube thing. It’s actually a little bit bigger than theirs. The square faces on this one are 29mm to a side, and leaving some room from the edge, the dials would probably be 25mm in diameter — about an inch.
The thickness of a face is 7mm, which is actually plenty of room for a spinning dial mechanism.
I know that because of the third exhibit.
Pictured is the Diceomatic by Yarro Studios. It was funded on March 11, 2024, promised by June, 2024, and delivered September of 2025, a year and a quarter late. That said, it’s exactly what they promised.
7mm thick, it contains two spinning disks. The button at the top spins them both at the same time. A clever mechanism spins the left disk slightly faster than the right disk so that they don’t stay in sync. Releasing the button stops both wheels simultaneously, and the numbers lock into place and are easily visible. You can hand it to someone and the numbers won’t change.
Yarro Studios hopes you’ll buy many of these and store them in a case you bring around with you, that they also sell. I opted to just get the one with two d20s in them. I still haven’t actually used it for a game, but it is fun to spin. Spiiiiiiiin.
But what if it were less than half the width? Do bearings exist that are so small?
I looked. They do exist. You could technically fit two bearing-and-dial mechanisms back to back in 7mm, but it would be tight. (I will point out again that the CNC machine shots they show in their campaign are clearly much, much thicker than their prototype.)
Could you do all this and still let people change out their dials? Backers have pointed out in the comments that it doesn’t look like these things have any mechanism to modify them. The Diceomatic has four small screws that open the whole thing up.
The claims made by the developers are fantastic, and they keep on in the comments making more and more claims. I noticed while reading the comments how many of the backers had cancelled their pledges, though.
Still, there’s more than enough folks who did back them for funding to succeed. I just wonder what they will actually get, and when. It won’t be something carved lovingly by hand from a solid block of titanium and shipped in June, that I promise.
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