I designed an electronic board game, very similar to Settlers of Catan. There are some electronic Catan builds out there, but I found them really expensive --

I designed an electronic board game, very similar to Settlers of Catan. There are some electronic Catan builds out there, but I found them really expensive -- e.g. opting for a smartwatch screen + microcontroller for every game tile (of which there are 19). Beautiful, yes -- but not my style. Instead, I went for 8-segment displays for numeric tile values, and RGB LEDs to display terrain types. It adds up to 342 LEDs to control for the full board, from a single central microcontroller. When you turn it on, it sets up the board for you. Pressing a central button "rolls the dice", and it will flash the tiles that produce resources as per the game rules. Or cue special actions on certain rolls. I really enjoy cost-optimizing prototypes, so this was good fun. I got it down to about USD 20 for a single, ready-to-play unit, including solid brass game pieces (it helps that I'm in Asia). I still use the deck of cards from Catan for now, but plan to replace it with something sci-fi themed. Maybe "Asteroid Miners". The only thing I'm not 100% satisfied with is that the board is a little cramped -- it's a bit over half the size of the original Catan board. The PCBs had to fit within 100mx100mm -- I used a bit of a weird PCB geometry so that the board is composed of 3 identical subunits, rotated a few degrees to maximize it's surface area within a 100mm square. I'm not planning to sell it. I just had a slow month, so it's a good time to learn to do new things. I never make any money with hardware, but I love how whimsical electronics can brighten someone's day. Sometimes that earns me a client -- and if not, it's cheap entertainment for me that keeps my skills sharp and my morale high.