A toy for my son

[RailRoaded]

So first a little bit of backgroud on me, Im pretty good with hardware, breadboards, and laying out circuits. I have not done much coding at all since the days of Quick Basic (Showing my age lol) Ive done a little but of C++ for arduino projects. My son is about 12 months and loves buttons that make sounds and light. So i boutght an Arcade joystick kit from amazon. It has a USB board that all the buttons and joy plug into so it acts as a usb joystick. The buttons light up. So my early plan is to us a Raspberry Pi, cut the wires toi the LEDs from the usb board (the lights are constantly on from it) and use the GIOP pins the light the buttons when he presses them and play a sound file. eventually I plan to add a neopixel matrix to show letters and patterns and such, but thast a ways out.right now im trying to workout how to poll the joystick and buttons and then send a high to a GIOP pin and play a sound file.

I've considered Pygame but Im not planning to have a monitor hooked up for now. also considered just skipping the usb board and going straight to GIOP but I would like to save the pins for other parts later. Also considered using an arduino to tke care of the buttons but will that really be any easier that usng the usb board?

THanks for any help and suggestions.