History Main / SimonSaysMiniGame

** ''TabletopGame/{{Cranium}} Piano (Star Performer):'' Teams take turns stepping on colorful piano keys on the floor screen, adding more notes for each new turn. The kids' rounds require one new note each turn, the adults' rounds two.

* Some games on ''Series/FamilyGameNight'' follow suit.
** ''TabletopGame/{{Cranium}} Piano:'' Teams take turns stepping on colorful piano keys on the floor screen, adding more notes for each new turn. The kids' rounds require one new note each turn, the adults' rounds two.

** ''Cranium Piano:'' Teams take turns stepping on colorful piano keys on the floor screen, adding more notes for each new turn. The kids' rounds require one new note each turn, the adults' rounds two.
** ''Simon Flash:'' Families wear giant cubes, which can change colors, around their bodies. A color sequence is shown and the families must reorder themselves to match the sequence and score a point. First team to five points wins.

** In ''VideoGame/SlyCooperAndTheThieviusRaccoonus'', the boss battle with Ms. Ruby plays like this.

Not to be confused with ActionCommands or PressXToNotDie.

** Adding to the frustration that is [[ThatOneSidequest Blockhead Grande]] are the precise mechanics of the blockheads: miss the spot by no matter how much and it's back to the literal drawing board. Doesn't sound too bad? Then how about the fact that Blockhead Grande requires you remember the exact location and order of eight (while the second hardest needed only five) identical weak spots, which is quite likely ''more than what a human being can memorize at any given time?''[[note]] According to ''The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two'' written by cognitive psychologist George A. Miller. This is also why the first ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' has seven different types of {{Mook}}s, by the way. [[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombiesGardenWarfare 2'': One of the four [[BrutalBonusLevel Trials of Gnomus]] is named the Trial of Recollection, and it is divided into four rounds: in each round is a gate with a sequence in it, before a large amount of panels with similar symbols. The player must jump on the panels in the order shown in the gate or be blown up and forced to try again. The kicker? You're only given about fifteen seconds for each round, memorization and plataforming combined, and the last two rounds have seven symbols to follow. [[spoiler:Completing any of the four trials rewards you with an eight-symbol code, enabling you to challenge a BonusBoss who drops a cypher based on the first code which reveals a part of yet another code. [[EldritchAbomination The Timeless Ones are just like that.]]]] Did we mention that the symbols in question are the complex shapes of various lawn-related items such as flamingos and lawmowers, all in the same light blue color? Have fun!

* ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'' has the Blockhead encounters: Attack one to see a sequence of weak points appear, then dot over the weak points in the same order to actually defeat it. Many players didn't initially realize that the order matters, which can add to the frustration of trying to take down [[{{Sidequest}} Blockhead Grande]] for his [[LastLousyPoint Stray Bead]].

* In ''VideoGame/StubbsTheZombie'', the showdown with the Chief of Police takes the form of this.

* One of the games in ''VideoGame/TheSecretIslandOfDrQuandary'', "Ape the Ape".

A MiniGame that presents the player a sequence of buttons and challenges him to memorize it and repeat it. Usually this must be done multiple times, with each sequence adding one or more buttons. It may not involve button presses directly, but rather requires the player to memorize some combination of actions. For example, you may have to press a group of differently-colored switches in the order they light up or kill a group of mooks in the order they first appear.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Inca}}'', this serves as one of the late-game puzzles, with the added factor that the color sequences shown must be inverted based on the blue crystal refracting the light being shown.

* This was the entire premise for ''Flagman'' for the Creator/{{Nintendo}} Game & Watch.

[[folder:Electronic Toys]]
* A closer {{Trope Namer|s}} than the children's game of Simon Says is the 1978 game ''Simon'' from Creator/MiltonBradley, which had colored buttons and musical sound effects.
** A similar game called "Bop-It" was a strange-looking plastic gizmo that called out actions that the player had to perform on the object like pressing a button, pulling levers, or twisting the object. Its main mode was just doing the correct actions as they were called, though another mode was directly Simon.
** "Brain Warp" also tasked the player with repeating commands one at a time, by rotating the toy so that the called color or number was oriented upward. One mode involved memorization and repetition: The first player chooses a first move, the second player repeats that move and adds a second move, the third player repeats the first two moves and adds a third, and so on.
[[/folder]]

* ''VideoGame/MarioParty1'': The aptly-named minigame Shy Guy Says. The four players are mounting barrels tied to a pirate ship led by a Shy Guy in the sea. The players are instructed to raise the same colored flag as that raised by the Shy Guy. If a player raises the wrong flag or doesn't raise any, the Shy Guy will cut the rope that ties their barrel with the ship, which leaves them adrift as they move away; if the Shy Guy raises both colored flags, the players must wait until he lowers one, as that means only the other colored flag has to be raised. The minigame continues until only one player remains.

* ''VideoGame/MarioParty'' will '''always''' have several games that are some variation on this, whether it be playing drums, raising colored flags (which has false positives), picking fruits to give to Bowser, jumping on the correct color platform, etc.

* Done a few times in ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam''. The first time is merely a really simple puzzle with blocks in the Pi'illo Castle basement, but later certain bosses will telegraph their attacks like this, with them moving a bunch of laser sights in a certain order and then afterwards shooting in the directions indicated.

%%* The Banana Bird bonuses in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble''.

[[quoteright:344:[[VideoGame/PokemonStadium https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/simonsaysminigame.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:344:Okay...Repeat after me!]]

* In ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'', used with the "Tiptup Choir" jigsaw piece in Bubblegloop Swamp, and again with a giant OminousPipeOrgan in Mad Monster Mansion.
** Rare must love these, as they used it again in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'', as one of Lanky Kong's golden bananas is earned this way in the Frantic Factory level, requiring him to GroundPound the multicolored notes on a piano.
** For an even earlier example, there are the Banana Bird bonuses in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble''.

** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'', a [[HeartContainer Heart Piece]] was earned by playing a game of this with the Skull Kids in the Lost Woods, requiring you to memorize musical notes and play them back using the titular ocarina. The frog choir's game (active after receiving their ''first'' Heart Piece) was basically this. On crack. You had to match up ''every'' note as it was played. Fortunately, the sequence was fixed.

* ''VideoGame/{{Aquaria}}'' has a Simon Says MiniBoss.

* ''VideoGame/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'' for the UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor had a DDR-style minigame with this sort of gameplay featuring Harry and Professor Flickwick, resulting in the amusing images of Harry doing things like shaking his tush at the screen or breakdancing on his head. In ''VideoGame/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'' on the UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance, Harry learns spells by copying his professor's wand movements.