Nintendo’s decision to release Everybody 1,2 Switch is good news for fans of terrible
rubber horse masks, and bad news for people who like competent, well-made, entertaining games.
At least, that’s the case if an insider report from 2022 is to be believed.
According to anonymous sources close to the project, playtesting for Everybody
1,2 Switch was an absolute disaster, with playtesters calling the game “tedious”.
According to the report: “No one expected Everybody’s 1-2 Switch to
test quite as badly as it did. Different trusted employees within Nintendo were raising alarms that
the game released as-is would damage the company’s reputation as a great software developer.”
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Now, with that out of the way, what were we talking about?
Oh yes, the new Nintendo game that everybody hates.
But, hang on – how can we be sure that this report was accurate? What actually happened, and why did,
if the report can be trusted, playtesters hate Everybody 1,2 Switch quite so much?
The internet has no shortage of wannabe Nintendo insiders, eager to share rumours
about games coming in the near future. For this reason, every such report should be taken with
a grain of salt, and scrutinised for accuracy. In this case, a June 2022 report on Fanbyte came
from a relatively respected source: Imran Kahn, a journalist who has built a strong
reputation for reliable and accurate reporting of video game news. According to the report:
“The information presented in this article is gathered from multiple sources with knowledge
of the product in question. While the sources are presented in the published story as anonymous,
we have verified their connections and are posting the information they
gave us with utmost faith in their accuracy.” What’s more, the report clearly had a degree of
accurate insider knowledge. A full year before Everybody 1,2 Switch had even been announce,
the report got its branding almost spot on. It calls the game Everybody’s 1,2 Switch and talks
about its mascot, a game show host with a horse’s head. Kahn clearly had some access to information
about the game long before it was made public. According to Kahn, making a follow-up to
the Nintendo Switch launch title, 1,2 Switch, was a challenge from the start.
The original game is not, to be generous, the most favourably remembered of Nintendo’s
first-party games. At the time of its release, it was criticised for shallow
gameplay that does little beyond show off all the fancy technology within the Nintendo Switch
JoyCons. Technology that has seen little use in the years since once it became clear that
just being a portable console was enough to sell copious units without gimmicky gameplay.
As a glorified tech demo for technology that has long since become ubiquitous within households
worldwide, there wasn’t really anywhere for the developers to go with a sequel.
Yet, as one of only two first-party Nintendo Switch launch titles, 1,2 Switch sold very well,
over three million units, and this likely had an impact on the decision to make another
one – whether demand was there or not. Says Khan:
“The title… went through a few variations as the developers struggled with a core question: how
exactly do you make a sequel to 1-2 Switch? The obvious answer was simply to add more minigames,
as other iterative party titles had done, but they also wanted to release a title that didn’t render
the first game moot and stop it from selling. The developers behind the project were Nintendo
EPD Group 4, who had previously made Nintendo Labo, Ring Fit Adventure,
and Game Builder Garage, as well as the original 1,2 Switch. This team is known for experimental
and often esoteric games which don’t always 100% hit their mark – which, at the very least,
makes them far more interesting than development teams that constantly remake the same thing.
According to Khan, the team decided to base Everybody 1,2 Switch on the online party titles
offered by Jackbox Games : Fibbage, Quiplash, and the delightful Joke Boat to name but a few. These
games came to prominence during the era of social distancing as a way for friends to spend time
together online which is, theoretically, more fun than simply having a Zoom call.
Theoretically. Mileage may vary . According to Khan’s report:
“The idea, on paper, was solid. Nintendo EPD Group 4 designed a host for the minigames based on
international appeal: a bipedal horse that looked like a man wearing a rubber horse mask. The game’s
text simply referred to him as ‘Horse’ because it sounded enough like the English word ‘Host’
that it would come across in different languages. “Minigames would ask players to physically move
around the environment for things like Musical Chairs, or use their phone to play Bingo. There
was even a game that resembled a virtual version of Spin the Bottle that involved saying something
nice about another person. “It tested horribly.”
According to Khan, playtesters – largely children with families – found much of the game’s content
incredibly dull. Khan specifically mentions the bingo minigame as being described as “tedious”,
and says that Horse was less than popular. Apparently, the main 2v2 mode that featured
Horse most prominently was so unpopular that, during the localisation process,
it earned a nickname that we can’t repeat because it was very rude and this is a family channel.
If Khan’s report can be taken at face value – and it absolutely should not be taken at face
value – then a year ago, Everybody 1,2 Switch was a game that nobody necessarily wanted, nobody know
how to make, and nobody enjoyed playing. So why is Nintendo releasing it anyway?
Well, it’s important to note that a lot can change in a year. Khan specifically points
out that it’s not uncommon for games to be changed dramatically following playtesting,
and that negative feedback during development is by no means a reflection of the finished product.
From the sounds of it, though, Nintendo wasn’t expecting feedback to be quite this dire,
which may explain why, according to Khan, the company had already
started manufacturing materials for the game before the severity of the
problem was revealed. According to Khan:
“Presuming that extra development would not be a problem, Nintendo went ahead with other
publisher duties on the game, like printing out the cover art and placing it in the requisite
cases for a retail release. Per sources, there’s still a large number of empty game
boxes for the title just sitting and waiting for a game with no current release date.”
Now, a year has passed. Everybody 1,2 Switch has no doubt undergone further development and
playtesting. At the time of making this video, the title has not been released,
so it’s unclear how much this earlier report reflects the finished game.
Nintendo has enough confidence in the title to actually release it, which may be a good sign.
That said, the game is retailing for £24.99 – significantly lower than the original 1,2 Switch
at launch, and, even today. Apparently, Nintendo’s confidence only reaches so far this time around.
The moral of the story? You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it any less creepy.