The Nintendo Labo may be designed for kids, but there’s still something incredibly exciting
about it.
The way it combines toys, education, and the Switch just seems like a natural extension
of Nintendo despite coming out of nowhere.
But there’s still a few questions when it comes to the idea such as how do these creations
work and what exactly will the games will be like?
Furthermore, is this all of them?
Well, no, as we actually see some unannounced Toy-Con as well.
So it’s time to build our own Toy-Con version of the old Analysis Machine to see what secrets
and hidden details we can find.
And let’s start with the RC Car Toy-Con, even though it looks more like some kind of
RC Creature...Anyway, the Nintendo Press release states that by inserting the left and right
Joy-Con into the RC Car, the HD rumble’s vibrations will move the car in the direction
you choose using the Switch screen.
And there are even enough materials in the package to create two of these, meaning you
and a friend can race each other if they have a Switch of their own.
As for controlling it, well the Switch itself acts as the Remote Control, featuring two
Arrow buttons, one for each Joy-Con.
We can see in the trailer that pressing just one will make the car turn in the opposite
direction, whereas pressing both at the same time will make it move forward.
It’s a clever little set-up, and we already can’t wait to create our own little obstacle
course for our races--especially with all the ways you can possibly dress them up, as
shown in the trailer.
But what makes it full-on cool was revealed in Nintendo Life’s hands-on preview with
the Toy-Con.
Thanks to the right Joy-Con’s IR Camera, a view from the creation itself can be seen
on the Switch’s screen.
This allows Nintendo to create games where players can explore nooks and crannies or
even compete against other RC creations, such as a sumo battle where the last one inside
a circle wins.
It really shows the potential of just the Toy-Con RC Car alone.
The next creation is the Toy-Con Fishing Rod, which telescopes for easier storage.
Both Joy-Cons slot into the rod itself, with one going into the handle and the other inside
the reel.
A string connects the business end of the rod to a cradle holding the Nintendo Switch
itself, which is where the primary fishing action takes place.
To get started, just unwind the line to lower the fishing hook into the water on the Switch,
and then you wait.
As soon as you feel the tug of a fish biting, as relayed via vibrations from the Joy-Con
inserted into the base of the rod, you need to tug the Rod upward and crank the reel,
which contains the other Joy-Con, quickly to bring in your catch.
It seems simple enough, but the Guardian article about Nintendo Labo mentions that the Fishing
Rod’s elastic bands and strings actually give the game realistic tension while playing,
even if the string itself clearly isn’t affected by the reeling.
Oh, and you gotta love how the visible cardboard on the Switch’s cradle is blue, as if it
were submerged underwater.
Cute.
This portion of the trailer also reveals how the software guides you through the creation
process on the Switch, with it walking you through it step-by-step.
The cardboard pieces displayed on-screen even animate when you hold the Forward button showing
exactly which tabs go where, and if that’s not clear enough, you can even rotate the
Cardboard pieces with a swipe of the finger or zoom in and out by pinching.
And if you’re growing impatient, you can speed up the animation by swiping right on
the Forward button.
Oh, and the ring surrounding the selected Toy-con in the bottom right shows exactly
how far along in the process you are, by turning red with each step.
Nintendo clearly wants to make sure that kids can handle this without any problems.
Also included in the Labo Variety Pack is the the Toy-Con House, which has the Switch
slot into the front, acting as a window to what’s inside.
You can insert various assembled blocks into openings on the sides and bottom of the house
in order to interact and play games with a creature living inside.
One of the images provided to the press suggests there may be five different objects to insert--although
it’s technically 4 since one’s actually a pair of identical objects connected by a
string.
The shape of the block is detected by the Right Joy-Con’s IR motion camera in the
top of the house, which tells it which object is being inserted.
We can see this in the trailer as the object inserted into the side of the house magically
spawns a faucet, which also seems send a gust of wind through the house, knocking the creature
back, as well as its jellybeans and the TV’s antenna which causes the TV’s image to briefly
go static.
The player can then twist the cardboard handle to turn the faucet on and pour water for the
little guy.
The house’s interior is surprisingly detailed too, featuring a window, curtains, a small
TV, playing cards on the floor, tacks in the wall, a small toy horse, a desk lamp with
a bottle cap as the base, and the aforementioned jellybeans littering the floor.
Oh, and then there are the “posters” on the wall which are actually stickers.
Although one of the posters is cleverly a Hanafuda card, as in the type that Nintendo
produced back when it first began back in 1889.
Then there’s that picture of Napoleon on the right which is also the design from those
same cards.
In an even more amusing touch, the TV has simple graphics of the creature on it, like
an old Tamagotchi.
It makes you wonder if this creature is perhaps a true Virtual Pet.
Although, the screen does display the option to Retry so perhaps there’s more of a goal
to this game beyond raising the creature.
Now might be a good time to mention that each game always has an on-screen “Close” option
in the corner, which is likely how you switch between the different Toy-Cons.
Although it seems this won’t be the only interior available to you, as another press
image reveals a more natural wooden structure, like a treehouse.
There’s even a branch peeking through--complete with Christmas lights on it for some reason.
Grass seems to be growing on the ground around a can that bears an icon of the little creature
here.
We can also see two bottle caps on the walls connected via a string, which the creature
seems to be using as a jump rope.
There’s also a hole in the back that seems to offer a view of the outside.
And finally, there’s a ladybug on the left wall.
But for as detailed as the house interiors may be, Nintendo’s leaving it up to the
player to decide how they want to decorate the exterior, as the trailer features a bunch
of different examples to truly make it your own, which are included as part of a Customization
Set.
Moving on, we have the Toy-Con Motorbike, where you slot the Switch into the center
of the handlebars, and a Joy-Con into either side to drive the bike on the screen through
a simple-looking race course.
The ignition button starts the engine by physically pressing one of the Joy-Con’s buttons, and
twisting the right handle causes the bike to accelerate, as detected by the Joy-Con
on that side.
Finally, to turn, simply lean your body or turn the handlebars in the desired direction--oh,
and you’ll actually see your character’s arms do the same on the screen, as we can
just barely see in the trailer.
In fact, we can also see the bike’s dashboard, including your speed, and what might possibly
be your RPMs.
While we’re on this image, we can see that the racetrack looks to get pretty tricky just
ahead, with it raising off the ground as it goes through a corner without any walls.
Let’s hope you don’t fall off!
But what has us curious is this press image showing two simpler Toy-Con next to the Motorbike.
One is shaped like a bike itself while the other resembles a scanner, which is appropriate
considering the right Joy-Con’s IR camera is facing out.
Perhaps it allows you to scan objects into the game to modify the course?
As for the bike, we’re not really sure what could be done with it, but both are definitely
related to the Motorbike Toy-Con.
What is brilliant though is the Toy-Con Piano.
With this, players will create a 13-key piano that allows them to experiment with their
own musical creations.
A pair of buttons on top seem as if they’ll let you play or pause, in the case of the
left one, while the right one looks like it’s for recording.
And we see the magic of how it all works thanks to the game’s own tutorial, where a Joy-Con
inserted into the back of the piano uses its infrared camera to see which keys are being
hit.
So it’s not just telling kids how to put these creations together, but how they also
work with Nintendo’s technology, which is super cool.
There are even knobs that you can insert to create new sound effects and tones--and it
looks like there’s four of them going by this press image.
The trailer shows that inserting knob #1 causes a cat icon to appear on-screen, which we’re
guessing changes the piano sounds to cat meows.
There are also 13 mole-like creatures on the Switch’s screen--one for each Piano key--although
we’re not sure if they’re just a cute way to provide feedback or if a game of whack-a-mole
could teach kids some simple songs?
There’s a lot of potential here.
But the most complex Toy-Con is the Robot as it comes in its own separate kit.
With it, players can create a suit with the left and right Joy-Con inserted into slots
on the backpack and visor.
The right Joy-Con then reads a series of reflective markers in the backpack, which are attached
to a series of ropes that connect to the player’s hands and feet, allowing your real-world movements
to be replicated on the docked Switch through the TV--such as walking and punching.
You can see the complicated setup at work by opening the backpack’s panel, exposing
all the moving parts.
It’s kind of crazy, and kind of awesome.
And in a super neat touch, the back of the robot in the game reflects the same moving
parts as your cardboard version, showing exactly how the robot’s reading your movements!
The left Joy-Con is attached to the visor on your head to track where you look.
However, we don’t know if it’s one-to-one tracking as all the scenes in the trailer
has the player keep his head still.
And while the Nintendo Life article described this, they themselves were unable to try it.
But based on the demonstration that they were shown, and what we see here, it seems incredibly
close to the ideal of VR games, just with real feedback.
So far, we only know of a single game mode called Robot Mode, but Nintendo’s press
release suggested there’d be several more.
In Robot Mode, the player’s goal is to destroy buildings and invading UFOs.
Thanks to the trailer, we can see the player destroy one such building with a punch, causing
it to collapse and exposing the support beams.
We can also see various UFOs floating around, which we’re guessing might be a bit trickier
to track since we can see at least one moving around.
It’s a good thing your Robot has a special feature, where if you crouch in the real-world,
it’ll transform into a vehicle for faster travel.
Hell.
Yes.
In the background, we can see signs with pictures of your robot, as well as another that features
what looks like a skull, or maybe an alien--which would make sense given the UFOs.
And in the far distance, we can see some wind generators.
Looking at just these few snippets of gameplay, it’s pretty obvious what became of Project
Giant Robot.
But as a final detail, this is the only Toy-Con in either pack to be used in dock form which
is kind of interesting.
And that’s all of the officially announced Toy-Cons so far!
But as it turns out, the trailer reveals even more Toy-Con creations that aren’t part
of either of the announced packs.
So yes, Nintendo is definitely planning on having more packs in the future.
The first we see is a bird that can be made to flap its wings, with the right Joy-Con
representing the bird’s beak and the control stick forming the eye.
It’s really clever but we’re still not sure what the Toy-Con is about.
Perhaps it’s a game to show kids the mechanics of flight?
The next creation is much more obvious though.
We see a wheel with a gear-shift and a pedal that’s placed on the ground, where we can
see an exposed Left Joy-Con to measure the angle of the pedal.
And we’re guessing the right one slots into the wheel itself to measure the rotation.
So yeah, clearly this is for some kind of driving game, one where subtle uses of the
gas pedal may be required.
And since the Switch itself is nowhere to be seen, it’s safe to assume it’s docked
for play on the TV.
More interesting is that this Toy-Con shows just how complex the interiors of these cardboard
creations can be.
These are not just cardboard games where kids use their imaginations.
This is full-blown machinery, just in a more simplistic form.
And speaking of simple, we see an extremely basic use of the cardboard in the trailer.
One Joy-Con is attached to a human-shaped cardboard cutout.
On the Switch screen there appears to be some kind of menu that serves as set-up for the
Toy-Con.
The player connects the touch box to the vibrate box so that every time the touch box is touched,
the controller vibrates.
But holding your finger there causes the box to turn yellow with rotate, expand, and settings
icons appearing.
So it would seem there’s a way to adjust exactly how you control it.
And that might be the entire point as the vibration causes the man to collapse.
So maybe it’s all about teaching kids about how much force is needed to make the man move
without falling down?
It could be that when the vibrate box is tapped, options for how hard it vibrates will appear.
Of course this is all just speculation, but that would seem to fulfil the purpose of showing
the mechanics of this Toy-Con.
Continuing on, we see a camera Toy-Con where the left Joy-Con is positioned within the
body itself, presumably to detect motion, whereas the Right Joy-Con is where the camera
lense would be, which makes sense seeing as it has the IR camera, suggesting you’ll
be able to see what it sees on the Switch’s screen--which might be docked on the backside
of the body.
And we’re guessing that rotating the lense could be used to zoom or perhaps adjust the
focal point.
Next is another Toy-Con that’s a little more difficult to identify.
The right Joy-Con is inside what looks to be the barrel of a shotgun as it moves back
and forth.
So could there be a shooting game coming, where you reload by pulling it back?
The entire thing is colored like the NES Zapper after all.
The next Toy-Con creation is even tougher to identify as it’s a box with wheels on
both sides that you can rotate, as sensed by the Right Joy-Con slotted on top.
But we have no idea what it’s for--perhaps it involves a water wheel or maybe it’s
meant to be an engine based on the vent-looking gaps in the cardboard.
Another, more complex Toy-Con, is then shown with the two Joy-Con inserted in the joints
of what looks to be an extendable arm device.
The exact use of it makes it tricky to identify its use in a game, but perhaps it’s a new
take on Nintendo’s Ultra Hand, allowing you to extend a virtual arm super far?
We then see another pedal-like Toy-Con but this one resembles the kick pedal of a drum
set, with the Joy-Con seemingly being inserted into the base.
We’ve already had a piano so drums wouldn’t be out of the question.
Finally, the last unnamed Toy-Con creation appears to be a flight stick, with a Joy-Con
measuring the tilt up top, which is a natural fit considering we’ve seen both a motorbike
and a car.
So yeah, it seems there may be a flight-based game incoming too.
And that’s 8 more creations that Nintendo has yet to officially unveil, easily enough
for two more packs.
It makes it seem like they’re confident in the Labo’s success, and after what we’ve
seen, it’s hard to argue with them.
There’s a lot of ideas here and many of them could easily appeal to kids no matter
their interest.
But what do you think?
Does the Nintendo Labo have potential?
Let us know in the comments below.
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