Video games rarely get a chance to jump out of the screen and into the real world, but with mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets this sort of gaming is becoming a reality. On the forefront of this sort of augmented entertainment, Germany-based drone maker TobyRich GmbH has come up with tobyrich.vegas, a gaming platform that gives mobile control of drones and the games that go with them.

Tobyrich.vegas is currently on Kickstarter seeking $110,000 to launch this new product—there’s 7 days left and the project is $20,000 away from being funded. Just a little bump will get them there.

TobyRich drones are small, durable prop planes that are controlled by a smartphone app. The craft are equipped with GPS, 4G/LTE, a 9-axes sensor, Bluetooth Smart technology, and HD cameras—everything needed to communicate with the smartphone to relay the exact position and movement of the drone so that it can be controlled (for pilots) or rendered (for anti-aircraft gunners.)

The games currently planned for controlling the drones include dogfights, air races and even stunts.

Precision control of the TobyRich drones is also possible with specialized joysticks designed for touch-based tablets. These joystick controls can be used to provide a free-flight mode for drone enthusiasts who want to just tool around as well.

As mentioned above, players who do not have drones to fly can still participate in dogfights by turning their smartphones into anti-aircraft guns. The phone becomes an augmented-reality game device that uses its camera to site the drone and the player can fire ground-based guns to take the drone out (before it bombs the player on the ground and defeats them.)

The drones of the tobyrich.vegas project

Aside from a planeload of technologies used for control and positioning, the drones delivered by Tobyrich are durable, accurate, and swift.

They have a total flight time of 20 minutes, so that might limit the time any single game could be played between friends. Drones also have a maximum range of approximately 300 feet—although there is a drone line with unlimited range. The drones themselves are not very large, measuring between 12 inches and 24 inches in wingspan (the bigger version is only available to high dollar backers initially.)

A screenshot of the tobyrich.vegas drone control app, via TobyRich

Drones also use onboard sensors to maintain stabilization and can use the mobile app in order to enter an auto-pilot assisted flight mode (for beginners) and are capable of flying slow enough to be used indoors. No doubt this means that the next Google-like office might have dogfights happening between the cubicles. As part of the autopilot, users also have access to a panic button that triggers “return to pilot” that causes the drone to attempt to return to the controller.

Finally, for the developers out there, TobyRich has promised an SDK that will permit 3rd party programmers to access the drones API and create more overlays for flight and modes for gameplay.

Interested or curious? Support the tobyrich.vegas Kickstarter campaign today.

Featured photo credit: TobyRich GmbH