The GitHub Badge Hides a 32-Level Side-Scroller—and Installing It Just Takes One Line to Copilot

Now that you’ve got your GitHub Universe 2026 badge, besides wearing it around your neck and taking photos, you can do something else with it. The official GitHub account posted a video on X showing a side-scrolling platformer called Super Mona running on the badge.

The game is called Super Mona, and it was made by Martin Woodward; the repo is already open source. The gameplay is standard side-scrolling action: run, jump, stomp bugs, collect stars, and hit ? blocks for items. There are 8 worlds with 4 levels each, for 32 levels total. Each world follows the structure of NES classics—one above-ground level, one underground, one sky, and one castle—but the layouts are original. The further you go, the wider the gaps and the more enemies there are.

You can play as Mona or as Ducky, the rubber duck.

The level names are aimed at programmers. World 1 is HELLO WORLD, SERVER ROOM, SKY BRIDGE, FIREWALL. Starting in World 5, you see BUG BASH, STACK TRACE, BREAKPOINT, SEGFAULT. The final level of World 8 is called SHIP-IT.

There are two ways to install it. The easy way is with a single Copilot prompt: connect the badge to your computer with a USB-C data cable, then give this to Copilot (the CLI, Copilot app, or VS Code agent mode all work):

Install Super Mona from https://github.com/martinwoodward/super-mona onto my GitHub Universe 2026 badge, which is connected over USB. Follow the instructions in that repository's AGENTS.md.

Copilot will clone the repo, run the install script, switch the badge into USB mass-storage mode, copy the game over, eject the drive, and finally check that the files are there.

If you’d rather do it yourself, that works too. You’ll need Python 3.8+ and mpremote; clone the repo and run python3 install.py. Just make sure to close Thonny, any Web Serial page, and any other mpremote sessions first, because only one program can use the badge’s serial port at a time. Older firmware may not be able to switch modes automatically—double-click the reset button on the badge, wait for the BADGER drive to appear, then run the install script using the volume path your OS assigns. If you don’t want to touch the terminal, double-click reset, drag the super_mona folder directly into the apps directory on the BADGER drive, eject the drive, and after the badge restarts you’ll see it in the menu.

The game runs in LORES mode at 160x120 resolution and doesn’t need an internet connection or extra hardware. It requires badge firmware from October 2026 or later.

One fun detail: if you leave the title screen alone for 10 seconds, it automatically enters demo mode, where a bot plays two levels for you while PRESS SELECT flashes on the screen. You can watch it collect stars; press any key to return to the title screen, or press Select to start playing right away. The demo doesn’t write scores or touch your save data.

The repo itself is nice and tidy. tests/ contains host-side unit tests, tools/build_super_mona_assets.py regenerates the pixel assets, and AGENTS.md documents deployment and development instructions for coding agents. It’s MIT licensed; Mona’s sprite comes from the Flappy Mona assets in badger/home, while all other code and art are original.

Under the tweet, someone asked Jeff Bruchado whether the game can run on badges from previous years or only on this year’s version. The repo docs currently mention only the Universe 2026 badge, and no one has answered yet. Another user, pranjulya, had a more direct take: a conference badge you can play games on is the best way to make every talk feel longer. He added that he still wants one.