Elden Ring not hard enough for you? How about spicing things up by ditching your Xbox controller and instead playing using a baby toy?
Dylan Beck, also known as Rudeism, a tinkerer and self-proclaimed “builder of bizarre controllers,” has managed to turn a Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Game & Learn Controller into a fully operational Xbox controller. Proof? A video of him playing Elden Ring with said controller (via The Verge). Behold.
Originally a mock controller whose only utility is lighting up and making funny (by funny we mean annoying) sounds, the Fisher-Price has proven to be surprisingly capable in this role. So capable, in fact, that we don’t doubt someone will soon post a video of winning the game with this thing.
The Verge has some details on how Beck has pulled this off. He put an Arduino Pro Micro clone, a two-axis joystick, and some microswitches inside the controller to get the thumbstick and all of the buttons to work. Due to limited space, Beck didn’t manage to pack batteries inside, so the controller had to be plugged into a USB port for power.
Rudeism has done similar (and often even more impressive) stunts before. For example, check out a video of him beating Dark Souls 3 (for the uninitiated, it’s a very, very hard game) by using just one button to punching in morse code. We are impressed.