Tendo City

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This seems like what Amiibo and other toys to life should have been from the start.  It's a toy you actually play with to play the video game, and its a cardboard kit you can probably just make yourself if you don't want to pay for Nintendo's own kit (excluding the needed software of course).


Yeah, Labo looks like a pretty cool toy. The way that it uses the camera on one of the Joycons to do things like play sounds in the piano (with reflective tape on the keys!) is kind of awesome. This is obviously mostly for kids, and I doubt I'd get it, but depending on how good the games are you never know...
It would be pretty fun to put this together with one's kids, I imagine.
So the Labo sounds pretty neat, and it should be great for kids. I do have two questions, though.

First, will the games be any fun for adults, or not? How fun and challenging will they be? How complex a game can you make that relies on a cardboard controller, because that is a definite limitation? Etc.

And second, the subject of playing these games in the future. While Nintendo is going to release the plans for how to make these things, if someone wants to play the Labo games in twenty years it could be tough. Most of the original ones will surely end up in the trash or recycling eventually, and it would be hard to get all of the exactly right kinds of cardboard, reflective tape, etc. that Labo builds require, to say nothing of folding them as required in all the right places, etc. By making the controllers out of cardboard Nintendo avoids the 'closet full of plastic stuff' problem, but the create a 'how will people in the future ever experience this?' problem which is unfortunate.

Still, for the most part I do think that the Labo sounds great.
I think the plans really should be enough. We aren't going to need millimeter precision here. The mechanisms are pretty macro, and should do the job just fine. Plus, there's easily going to be a nice aftermarket of sellers reproducing the parts so you don't have to cut them "just so". Honestly I think the future of this product is more secure than the future of other accessory driven products.
https://kotaku.com/we-tried-nintendo-lab...1822648626

So Nintendo showed Labo to the press, and it sounds like it's mostly pretty good. That's great to hear!

Dark Jaguar Wrote:I think the plans really should be enough. We aren't going to need millimeter precision here. The mechanisms are pretty macro, and should do the job just fine. Plus, there's easily going to be a nice aftermarket of sellers reproducing the parts so you don't have to cut them "just so".

Aftermarket replacement cardboard parts... that's a good point, there probably will be people selling those won't there. That'd be good.

Quote:Honestly I think the future of this product is more secure than the future of other accessory driven products.]
Really? How so?
Because anyone can just make replacement parts, as opposed to the Powerglove, which just... is never going to get a second release.
So I've watched a few Labo build streams, and it looks pretty cool! The folding-heavy building looks like something I'd like, and it's nice that you get a good amount of stuff to do for your money -- each thing takes hours to get through, and the Variety Kit comes with a bunch of them. How long you'll be playing the minigames for is a much more open question of course, but they seem to at least be well designed, with some depth. Whenever I get a Switch I'll get the Labo Variety Kit for sure. Sure, it's more for kids than adults, but it looks like there's enough there to make it worth getting.

Of course though, the issue of playing this stuff again in the future is a big problem. Like, if there's one of these minigames you actually like, how would you play it in a few years? How many people are actually going to keep (and not damage) these large cardboard creations? Sure, the plans are out there on the internet, but managing to cut and fold all that stuff on your own would be really hard. Labo is kind of cool, but it's also one of the most ephermeral gaming products Nintendo has ever made. Maybe this is better than the mountains-of-plastic solution you see with, say, Wii addons, and that you actually build this stuff is great and is a big part of the experience, but the inevitable result of that is a game that'll be hard to go back to.
ABF, you can literally make more of this stuff any time forever and ever so long as cardboard exists. This is THE most "replaceable" thing Nintendo has ever, EVER made. You are literally the only person in the history of everywhere "worried" about using this in the future. It's the most future proof thing possible. Nintendo themselves make it reprintable. They don't care. Building it IS the game, so all you need to do is print it again, and the game is back.
So I finally decided to try building some Labo today. I went with the vehicle kit because of the two I have (variety and vehicle) it sounds like the better game. So far I built the pedal and key, and yeah, this stuff's kind of neat. I can definitely see kids loving building this, but while repetitive I had some fun with it. There's a lot of folding involved with building Labo, though... a LOT. The no-cuts cardboard lives up to the hype, though, and yeah, it really is cardboard you won't get paper cuts from! That's pretty awesome, it's usually easy to get a cut on cardboard edges. I also like that once you finish building the pedal they give you something to do -- there's a slot racers game here that you only need the pedal for, and it's a fun little thing too.

So yeah, Labo's alright, apart from the questions of space (where do I keep all this stuff?) and such. I'll continue with the main builds here later so I can play the main game another day, the steering wheel promises to take a few hours.
I finished making the steering wheel, and well, it does work... but it's clear that it's a motion control device that controls the wheel with only the tilt sensor in a Joycon. The wheel's not exactly the most responsive thing, and the knobs you turn to switch items aren't the most responsive either. Of course it's amazing that they work at all, since they're just rods with reflective tape on them that the Joycon's IR camera can see, but it's definitely not as good as real buttons or switches.

As for the game, it's an open-world driving game with objectives and such. It's okay, if quite simple, but it needs better indicators telling you where to go -- as far as I can tell it doesn't do that, you just have to figure it out, which can be annoying. Sure, there isn't all that much in this world, but still I don't want to wander around... oh well. It's an okay little game, but yeah I can see why Labo hasn't caught on beyond maybe some kids, it's kind of fun to build but the end product, while definitely functional, isn't as good as a real controller.