Unleash your bedroom coder with the Gamebuino META retro-gaming console

Atari doesn’t have a monopoly on wood when it comes to retro consoles. With its natty beech skin, Gamebuino META (€79) resembles a lovingly hand-crafted take on a Game Boy Micro. Based on an Arduino Zero, this tiny console sends you back to gaming’s halcyon days in another way, too, urging you to make your own creations. The free tutorials begin with sort-of PONG, but Gamebuino META’s creator talks of working up to “a killer AI” – or, if that feels like too much hard work, a system to water plants. Prefer gaming only? Then delve into dozens of open-source indie titles, which you can play for an entire day before the Gamebuino META’s battery runs dry. And they can tap into eight controllable RGB LEDs, too, meaning Disco PONG can’t be far off. Let’s see a Nintendo console do that.