Pumpktris is a Working, LED-Lit Tetris Jack-O-Lantern

Just when you thought your Twilight <a href="http://inhabitat.com/nyc/ray-villafane-unleashes-an-army-of-ghastly-zombie-pumpkins-at-the-new-york-botanical-garden/" target="_blank">jack-o-lantern couldn’t be beat</a>, Nathan at <a href="http://http://www.hahabird.com/2012/10/pumpktris/" target="_blank">Hahabird</a> had to steal your thunder with his working <a href="http://inhabitat.com/swiss-esge-secondary-school-has-a-funky-tetris-facade/" target="_blank">Tetris</a> pumpkin! Aptly named "Pumpktris", the raw pumpkin was integrated with a series of LEDs and hardware that transform the winter squash into a video game. To make things extra fun, gamers can play it too: not by using joystick, but rather by the pumpkin’s own stem!

Hoodlums will think twice before smashing Pumpktris, which glows thanks to 125 embedded LED lights, rather than a candle.

Set to a Halloween-ed version of the ever infectious Tetris soundtrack, Nathan’s step-by-step tutorial teaches you how to transform your regular pumpkin into the <a href="http://inhabitat.com/maniac-pumpkin-carvers-elevate-pumpkin-carving-to-an-art-form-in-nyc/" target="_blank">jack-o-lantern</a> that all the nerds will be talking about for years to come.

Video game lovers can start out by <a href="http://inhabitat.com/celebrate-fall-with-these-6-delicious-pumpkin-recipes/" target="_blank">scooping the requisite seeds</a> and pumpkin guts, but instead of tracing on a spooky face, Pumpktris’ face is a grid of squares and holes, which were created with a drill to ensure consistent size and spacing.

The techie part comes with programming an LOLShield (LED Matrix) with the Tetris game, or to make your own LED Matrix—which is what Nathan did. Nathan then wired each LED bulb externally so he could space them apart, filling in each hole of the grid.

A short-handled joystick was attached to the stem, which was cut off and reattached to ensure easy mobility when playing. The “joystem” moved the internal joystick, letting players move and contort the <a href="http://inhabitat.com/tetris-shaped-trash-filled-street-furniture-encourages-recycling-in-argentina/" target="_blank">Tetris pieces</a>, which lit up on the LED grid.

The Pumpktris may possibly be the coolest video game we’ve ever seen, but it's also the only one with a perishable expiration date!