It sounds as good as any to start on, but wondering if it'll depend on what I/O board you're using. I don't know much about hardware interfaces, but this might be a tricky bit. I'd start with the game logic - that shouldn't be too difficult. From (painful) experience, I'd start with Visual Basic (either C# or VB.net - the latter's a little more beginner friendly) via Visual Studio Express (Free!). Then you could practice the game logic using timers, arrays and randoms via a form application. Place some buttons on a form and voila! Simon. Then you'd just have to do the (potentially, although not sure) difficult bit of turning a change form-button event to a light LED event instead. EDIT: And if you want to cheat, here's a small bit of vb.net that runs simon: http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?705623-vb-net-Simon Main thing this shows is it isn't a huge bit of code - break it/add to it/examine it and it;'ll give you a feel for vb.net. Good luck, brother!