KeyChainino 144

Description

KeyChainino 144 is a tiny, keychain-sized arcade: a 12×12 LED matrix, two buttons, and 17 built-in games you can play the moment it arrives — no soldering, no app, no reprogramming.

Try it right now, in your browser

Curious what it actually feels like to play? Try the real KeyChainino firmware right here in your browser, no purchase necessary.

Add to cart — €27.00

17 games, already on the device

Every unit ships with the full lineup loaded and ready:

• Bricks — bounce a ball off your paddle to knock out every brick on the board.
• Snake — guide a growing snake to eat, without doubling back into its own tail.
• Blocks — slot and rotate falling shapes to complete solid rows and clear them.
• Invaders — shoot down a descending formation of aliens before it reaches you.
• Tennis — a one-on-one paddle rally against the computer; first to slip up loses.
• Tower — time each button tap to stack the sliding blocks into the tallest tower you can.
• Frog — hop across lane after lane of moving traffic without getting flattened.
• Flap — tap to keep flapping and thread through the gaps in an endless wall.
• Racer — weave through oncoming traffic as the road scrolls faster and faster.
• Echo — watch a pattern of flashes, then play it back; it grows by one every round.
• Jump — leap over the obstacles rushing toward you and see how far you can run.
• Catch — slide side to side to catch the falling pieces before they hit the floor.
• Whack — hit each target the instant it pops up, as fast as you can react.
• Dice — a pocket pair of dice: press to roll for board games or quick decisions.
• Life — a tiny cellular colony that grows, dies and evolves on its own as you watch.
• Muncher — clear a the chaser hunting you through it.
• Steroids — strafe at the rocks tumbling down toward you.

Browse them from an icon menu, confirm with a two-button tap, and the game’s name scrolls by so you always know what you picked.

A 12×12 LED matrix, with real greyscale

The matrix is charlieplexed — 144 LEDs driven from 13 pins — and the new firmware rewrote the driver from scratch to add three real brightness levels instead of the old flat on/off look. Backgrounds and scenery sit dim, the action and the player sit bright. It’s still an LED grid, not a screen — that’s the charm of it.

Your best scores, saved on the device

Each of the 17 games keeps its own high score in the device’s memory, so it’s still there the next time you pick it up. Beat your own record, or hand it to a friend and see if they can.

Power that just keeps going

KeyChainino 144 runs on a single CR2032 coin-cell battery (not included) and lasts more than three months of normal daily use. It sleeps automatically when you’re not playing and wakes up with both buttons pressed together — there’s no charging cable, ever.

Open source, if you ever want to go further

The firmware is fully open source. If you want to modify it or write your own game, you can — it’s built with the Arduino IDE. Reflashing the board does require an ISP programmer (not just a USB cable), so it’s a project for the maker crowd, not a requirement for everyday play.

Made in Italy, in small batches

KeyChainino is designed and assembled in Italy in small production runs. Only a few pieces of the current batch are left, and we can’t guarantee when — or if — the next one will happen.