Simon

Watch the lights, listen to the tones and repeat the pattern. How long can you keep up with Simon?

Watch. Listen. Remember. Repeat.

Simon flashes one of its colored buttons and plays a tone. You press the same button. Then it flashes two. Then three. Then four. You have to keep repeating the sequence back until your memory finally gives up.

At first it’s easy - Red. Press red. Red, green. Press red, then green. But the pattern keeps getting longer and longer, and sooner or later you're staring at those four buttons trying to remember whether the next press should be green, yellow, red, or blue.

Milton Bradley introduced Simon in 1978. Ralph Baer, who had already helped create one of the first home video-game systems, worked with the Marvin Glass toy-design group to design the game. The old game of "Simon Says" felt very high-tech when a round electronic game was flashing lights and making sounds at you.

There really isn't much strategy - you just have to remember an increasingly long string of colors and sounds and be able to repeat them back. Which doesn't sound very difficult until Simon gets to that one extra flash that makes you forget the entire sequence.

Simon is still sold today in essentially the same original classic version. And, they now make a Simon Micro Series that is ideal for travel. Either way, the challenge remains unchanged - just repeat back the pattern - whoops! Just one more try, I know I can make it further this time!

If you like Simon, you would probably also like Bop It! It’s a very similar concept, but in a multiplayer, pass-around handheld game that gives you increasingly fast voice commands to activate the three controls before time runs out - “Bop It!”, “Pull It!”, “Twist It!”.