Simon was an incredibly simple yet incredibly popular electronic game that was launched by Milton Bradley in 1978 but was a mainstay of the early 1980’s. Â It was based on the childrens game Simon Says, where a player is nominated leader and tells everyone else to perform different actions, but only when they say “Simon says“.
The electronic version of Simon went a little further than this simple playground game however, as it added an additional demand on the players memory. Â The game consisted of four big illuminated buttons in red, green, yellow and blue. Â Simon would flash the buttons in a randomised sequence, with each coloured button playing a different tone as they flashed. Â The player then had to repeat this sequence by pressing the buttons in the same order.
If the player got it right, the same sequence would be played back again but with an extra random colour tacked on the end. Â So the game continued until the player got the sequence wrong, which ended the game.