Sometimes the Christmas season can feel like a holiday all about spending money to demonstrate your love for others. Many a maker has attempted to subvert these commercialistic overtones by giving handmade presents to friends and loved ones. [APA] is no exception, and has shared their story of producing a simple Simon game during the holidays.

The circuit is nothing wild – an ATtiny85 microcontroller interfaces a handful of buttons and LEDs to handle the basic Simon gameplay. The real value is in [APA]’s retelling of the development process. It’s an accurate recounting that makes us relive some of our own follies of early projects. There’s the confusion between SMD and through hole versions of the same part, forgotten pull up resistors, as well as hours lost trying to figure out why a chip won’t write, only to learn the bootloader hasn’t been burned yet.

In the end, [APA] was able to push through a rush order and deliver the gifts on time, despite the many pitfalls along the way. The final game provided some laughs around the dinner table at Christmas, so we’d say the mission was definitely accomplished.

We’ve seen similar work before, too – like this tiny Simon game on an ATtiny13.