Bandai Luminodot awakens Lite-Brite nostaligia

Posted by Al Warmington on Tue 16 Sep 2008

Not ideal if you have pets. Or children.

Okay, we confess - we didn't have a Lite-Brite toy when we were nippers. To be honest, by the time we reached an age where we could be trusted not to swallow the tiny pegs, flick them at repeatedly at younger siblings in the hope that they might swallow them, or scatter them to the four winds in a fit of frustrated creativity, our dads already had us mastering the docking system in Elite.

If you did have a Lite-Brite and somehow survived the encounter without a stomach pump or two, you'll love Bandai's latest design. The Luminodot is the same deal as Lite-Brite - you get more coloured pegs than you could reasonably lose down the back of a sofa and a backlit board. Go forth and revel in your pixel art.

The Luminodot has a wealth of upgrades on the original toy though - it offers 3,500 peg holes to unleash your imagination on, laid out in a 70 x 50 grid (can we call it widescreen?). Unlike the paltry light bulb of old, Luminodot has an LED backlight, which isn't just brighter and more power efficient - it can play 25 different light patterns.

Bandai provides 1,600 pins in 12 different colours and is currently available in Japan. It's 10,035 Yen, which is a little over £50. There are no plans to export them yet, but keep your eyes peeled on eBay. In the meantime, you can play with a virtual version here (top button, we think).

And if you're thinking that individual pegs planted in a blacklit board can't make for great art, think again.

Bandai (via Technabob)