Meggy Jr RGB handheld: only as fun as your programming skills allow

If you're the type who looks at the Pandora and scoffs at the simplicity, you'll find oodles to adore in the Meggy Jr RGB. Deemed the "little sister" of the Peggy LED display kit, this gaming handheld from Evil Mad Science is only as fun as you make it; in other words, it provides all the incentive you need to sharpen those programming skills in order to craft engrossing pixel-based titles. The portable unit packs a fully addressable 8 x 8 RGB LED matrix display, a lo-fi audio transducer and plenty of buttons for controlling the action. The unit comes pre-loaded with a single game (isn't that sweet?), but from there, it's up to you to put those soldering / coding skills to good use. Claim yours now for $65 to $95 -- just be ready to deal with loads of frustration on your way to homegrown handheld nirvana.

[Via Engadget German]

[Gabe @ Nov 17th 2008 7:34AM]

Looks like oodles of fun.

[TheBigB @ Nov 17th 2008 1:20PM]

Looks like a gameboy...

I was going to say 'reinventing the wheel', but maybe it's more a DIY Wheel-kit...

[GWAN @ Nov 17th 2008 7:48AM]

Tetris? That would be fun!

[MM @ Nov 17th 2008 7:50AM]

Your mean Testis?

[SewerShark @ Nov 17th 2008 8:12AM]

I'm gonna hate myself for that, but...
Can it run Crysis?

[themovielife @ Nov 17th 2008 8:32AM]

I guess that's up to you to code it.

[chrisp @ Nov 17th 2008 8:38AM]

Yes but only at 8 x 8 with all the settings on low.

[Frogboy @ Nov 17th 2008 8:44AM]

Yes, it can run Crysis with all settings turn to high. It can also play DOOM, make toast and, of course, blend.

[SOOPERGOOMAN @ Nov 17th 2008 8:44AM]

Old and boring just like all the comments above me. Snore!!! If I want 8 bit games I'll run an atari emulator on my psp.

[loocas @ Nov 17th 2008 8:47AM]

No, this won't even play Pong.

[Electromodo @ Nov 17th 2008 10:35AM]

CHECKERS! or chess if you color code the figures...

[Patriks7 @ Nov 17th 2008 9:58AM]

God.. I can see my PSP hiding in shame after it saw this picture :\

[CraigJ @ Nov 17th 2008 9:58AM]

This is cool but the display means it is very limited in what you can do with it. I found this the other day and I think it would offer a lot more flexibility and power: http://www.parallax.com/Store/Sensors/CustomKits/tabid/134/txtSearch/hydra/List/1/ProductID/467/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName%2cProductName

[Electromodo @ Nov 17th 2008 10:01AM]

I am thinking hard but can't imagine any game that will be suitable for this screen except for a very low-res Tetris.

8x8 is a size of Atari's Space Invaders... alien sprite! The smallest sprite that I can think of! Even NES Mario sprite is bigger: 16x16.

This thing might sell as hotcakes if they had a child-friendly API with graphical GUI and commands like "move this red dot here, honey... hooray!" to teach the preschool programming.

[Tom @ Nov 17th 2008 10:12AM]

I smell a super-nerdy version of "Snake". Eat your heart out, Nokia.

[BratPAQ @ Nov 17th 2008 10:26AM]

whats that game called where you need to make for dots of same color?

[M. @ Nov 17th 2008 11:28AM]

Reversi (PC) or Othello (Real World)

[StalematE @ Nov 17th 2008 1:09PM]

connect four?

[Generic @ Nov 17th 2008 12:34PM]

Watch out PSP!
Some underwhelmed Meggy Jr RGB owner might just kill whomever is pushing your buttons, for your sake.

[StalematE @ Nov 17th 2008 1:10PM]

looks like a handheld lightbright to me.

[Shaharyar @ Nov 17th 2008 7:47PM]

This is definitely the next-gen portable HD gaming console. =p

[Muhammad-Oli @ Nov 18th 2008 9:27AM]

HD? ...Huge Dots?