Move Over, Charlie Brown — There’s a New Great Pumpkin In Town

What’s round, orange, has a stem, grows in a patch… and can be used to play a classic video game?

If you still guessed “pumpkin,” you deserve a treat.

Just in time for Halloween, Nathan Pryor — an artist, programmer, and builder — built a custom LED light matrix, mounted hardware, wrote code, and then rigged it all up inside, essentially, a very large squash.

The stem serves as a joystick.

He calls his brilliant invention “Pumpktris.” In the video he posted to YouTube, costumed friends can be seen playing it at a Halloween party — talk about the perfect party favor!

Click the photo to watch the video:

Seriously cool stuff.

Nathan reports that the process involved:

• 128 LEDs
• 256 pieces of heat-shrink tubing
• 313 solder joints
• around twelve hours of work
• 9800-point high score (so far)

One thing’s for sure — nobody would dare leave this Jack O’Lantern out on his or her front porch for All Hallows’ Eve.

How long until we’re tweeting and posting from the vegetable of our choice?

Happy Halloween!