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Have you ever imagined a toddler playing “Elden Ring?” It’s not that it’s impossible, it’s just that it’s very ill-advised. “Elden Ring” is hardly a child-friendly title, and it’s difficult enough to frustrate most adults. However, as proven by Twitch gamer and modder Rudeism, you can, indeed, play “Elden Ring” with the Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Controller, made for babies and toddlers aged 6-36 months. Rudeism managed to successfully mod the device so as to copycat a fully-functioning Xbox game controller. Rudeism showed off his achievement by recording himself walking around in “Elden Ring” accompanied by the cheerful sounds made by the Fisher-Price controller. It’s a priceless sight — but if you’d want to make one for yourself, be prepared to make a bit of a gameplay sacrifice.
Rudeism has been reporting on his modding journey via Twitter, from the very first hiccups to the moment when the controller was fully done, ready, and functional. By itself, the cute Fisher-Price device is not actually a controller. It’s a toy with buttons that light up and emit happy sounds, such as, “1, 2, 3, 4, up goes your score” — but it doesn’t have a physical port for power or connectivity that’d allow your toddler to play any actual games. That, in itself, is not at all surprising, since it’s meant to be a learning device and not a gaming tool. However, in a true “hold my beer” fashion, Rudeism turned this baby’s plaything into an Xbox controller clone.
Fisher-Price turns into an Xbox controller
As the controller doesn’t actually do much of anything by itself, Rudeism had to crack it open and deck it out with an Arduino Pro Micro as well as a functioning two-axis joystick. He also added microswitches to the shoulder buttons in order to replicate those found on the Xbox controller. The modding process was not seamless — at one point, he reported on Twitter that he was almost done, but the joystick wouldn’t close with the addition of the Arduino. He must have found a way around it, as the finished product looks pretty great. Unsurprisingly, the controller is not wireless and needs to be plugged in for you to be able to play.
This controller is not for babies
Although Rudeism hasn’t properly tested the controller in-game, he showed off the buttons and the way they were mapped in a short clip from “Elden Ring.” Xbox controllers have two analog sticks, and the Fisher-Price toy only has one, but Rudeism found a way around that too by rigging the yellow switch in the bottom-right corner of the device. Flicking it left makes the analog stick work as the left analog stick, and flicking it right does the opposite. This also changes the function of the other keys, though, so everything gets a little bit wacky in “Elden Ring” with that setting.
The other functions are all preserved from the real thing, with the A, B, C, and D buttons being mapped to copy their differently-named Xbox counterparts. In “Elden Ring,” you can still attack using the bumper/shoulder buttons, and flicking the yellow switch turns the function from a light attack to a heavy attack. Obviously, in actual gameplay, this is likely going to be a bit clunky — but Rudeism promises to try to play “Elden Ring” with the Fisher-Price controller.
This wasn’t Rudeism’s first rodeo
Aside from modding the Fisher-Price toy, Rudeism specializes in various interesting ways to play games. He shares his achievements both on Twitter and on Twitch. He previously managed to beat “Dark Souls 3” with a single-button controller used for Morse code inputs. This amounted to a total of 19 bosses and a whopping 258,250 button presses. Considering that many people struggle to beat “Dark Souls 3” with a regular controller, beating it with just one button may seem insane to the average outside. But then again, “Souls” players are known for the interesting and widely varied methods they’ve utilized to beat the game. Let all these recent “Elden Ring” speed runs serve as proof.
“Elden Ring” is a stunning title with a lot of action-packed gameplay. Being a game from the “Dark Souls” universe, it’s also known to be fairly hard and frustrating. If dying over and over in games is not your thing, then “Elden Ring” likely won’t be, either. However, we can’t wait to see Rudeism try to tackle some of the hardest bosses in the game, such as Malenia or the Elden Beast, with Fisher-Price’s cheerful tunes playing in the background whenever he fails to defeat the boss. It’s bound to be comedy gold — but it still won’t look as ridiculous as one of these Sonic the Hedgehog special-edition Xbox controllers that were unveiled a short while back.
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