A new Nintendo Labo Toy-Con kit is on the way, rejoice fans of cardboard creations! Nintendo has just released a video that takes a close look at the Nintendo Labo Vehicle Kit, and it looks incredibly exciting.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Igx2kPjKh98
The video explores the different creations included in the kit, as well as what you can do with these vehicles. The three vehicles are a car, with a steering wheel with working gear shifts and a pedal; a submarine, with handles to control movement, and a plane, with a joystick and trigger. Nintendo also says there are some extras in the box, but didn’t go into what they might actually be. Judging by the Variety Kit and the Robot Kit, it’s likely more cardboard extras to modify how you play and interact with each Toy-Con.
Interestingly, the ToyCon’s are operated by “keys” that allow you to simply slot a Joy-Con into place and play, switching seamlessly between different vehicles as you see fit. Because there are two keys, this means same-screen multiplayer is a big part of the game —you can drive about as your friend flies above you.
If those vehicles aren’t enough for you, the Toy-Con Garage lets you open up the creations to teach you how they work and, in turn, make your own creation. This means you can mix and match parts of the kit to design a controller you feel comfortable playing with —the video shows someone driving a car with a mix of Labo and drum kit, so the world is your oyster!
The video also explores some of the things you’ll be doing with your vehicles. In Adventure Mode you can explore a large world with many biomes, including a desert, mountains, a canyon, and a city; while doing so you can play giant golf, find collectables and complete various challenges and tasks.
Circuit Mode is a Mario-Kart-esque racing mode that combines fast-paced multi-racer chaos with light combat, in which you can punch opponents off the map. There’s also a slot car racing alternative, which only uses the pedal, and so controlling your speed as you drive around the map is the key to victory. Both of these types of racing is supported by the Variety Kit, which lets you create your own courses.
The final mode, Battle Mode, is rather self-explanatory. You go head-to-head against another player or the AI in a small arena, using the aforementioned punching mechanic and a slew of power-ups. The Joy-Con’s IR motion camera allows you to create arenas for this —the video shows players battling on hills shaped like a person’s hand.
A final feature shown is the Toy-Con Spray Can, which lets you design and colour your plane, car or submarine using stencils and a variety of colours. Customised vehicles are availble for use in each of the game modes.
The Nintendo Labo Vehicle Kit will be out on 14 September.
Nintendo Labo: Everything you need to know
Nintendo Labo is exactly the sort of thing only the creative and playful minds at Nintendo could dream up. On paper, it sounds absurd: A set of cardboard structures to house your Nintendo Switch in and play some games with. In practice, it’s one of the most refreshing and glorious examples of the creativity that video games can bring out in people. It’s a perfect, family-friendly creation where every push of a button, turn of a dial or flick of a cardboard switch results in a gleeful smile.
My Nintendo Labo review explains all the reasons why Labo is the greatest creation from Nintendo since the Switch, but if you want to delve deeper into what each individual Toy-Con does – and what Labo actually is – you’ve come to the right place.
Labo is more than simply just clever engineering with cardboard and the Switch’s IR sensor, Nintendo has also built a platform that encourages playfulness and creativity, giving young players an insight into how complex devices are built and how similar technologies can be repurposed in new and innovative ways. It’s as much an educational tool as it is an outlet for creative expression and entertainment.
Nintendo Labo release date: when’s it out?
Both the Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 01 Variety Kit and Toy-Con 02 Robot Kit are out now, with a new Toy-Con 03 Vehicle Kit on the way 14 September. On the same day as the first two kits released, Nintendo also made a Customisation Set for Nintendo Labo – containing a set of stickers, stencil sheets and coloured tapes to jazz up your Toy-Con creations – available to everyone.
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Nintendo Labo price: How much will it cost?
Initially, Nintendo Labo seemed rather expensive. The Variety Pack, Toy-Con 01, will set you back £59.99 with the Robot Kit, Toy-Con 02, costing £69.99.
While that may seem steep, in reality, it’s actually quite a reasonable price. The Variety Pack contains five Toy-Con creations and each one can be modified, repurposed, redesigned and their multiple uses educate children and adults about how things work. It’s as much an educational experience as it is an entertaining one.
The Robot Kit only contains the Robot Toy-Con, but it’s such a mammoth build that it takes nearly as long to create as building all five of the Variety Pack Toy-Cons combined. The software also has more modes to enjoy than simply rampaging around in a robot suit, so it’s surprisingly reasonably priced for a Nintendo Switch game.
The Customisation Set will also set you back £8.99.
There is currently no price for the Vehicle Kit.
Nintendo Labo: What is it?
Nintendo Labo is hard to really quantify in any simple and straightforward way. Its surprise announcement via a dedicated Nintendo Direct showed it to be another leftfield Nintendo idea, encouraging play through tactile toys. It’s doing what the Wii did for making gaming approachable, but instead, it’s about making gaming creative and educational.
In its simplest form, Nintendo Labo is six cardboard structures to use with your Nintendo Switch. Five of those structures, called Toy-Cons, can be found in a Nintendo Labo “Variety Pack”, or Toy-Con 01. The sixth Toy-Con comes in the “Robot Pack”, or Toy-Con 02. Buying a pack gives you access to each of the individual Toy-Con creations contained within, along with a set of games and creative software to use them with.
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Nintendo has also announced that Nintendo Labo has a wonderful section that allows you to create your own Toy-Cons from the ones Nintendo supplies in its packs. You can reprogram and repurpose, and even extend their inter-compatibility beyond what Nintendo has even imagined. It’s seriously impressive stuff and a sign that you’re purchasing far more than just some cardboard and instructional videos. And also that it has more longevity than your set of GameCube bongo controllers.
Nintendo Labo: How does it work?
If you’re wondering how Nintendo Labo, and its many parts, all work, you’re not alone. In essence, it really is just using what the Nintendo Switch already has at its disposal. Most games revolve around the use of motion controls and the IR sensor located on the Right Joy-Con.
The IR sensor uses reflective strips to work out where objects are so they properly interact with the Switch. For instance, with Toy-Con Piano, each of the keys has a strip of reflective tape stuck to it so the IR sensor knows when a key is being pressed. Using predefined hitboxes, the Switch knows when a certain item or element is being pressed, pushed, pulled, twisted or moved in any way and reacts to it. Toy-Con Robot works in a similar way, tracking when movement happens through lifted weights and pulleys.
The other side of the action comes in the form of utilising the Switch’s motion sensors and accelerometers to understand when something is being rotated, flicked or shaken so it can produce the expected response on-screen. HD Rumble is also used to great effect to control the RC Car and offer feedback in the Motorbike racing game too.
It’s wonderfully simple technology but, when packaged up in Nintendo Labo, it really does feel like magic when an on-screen creature reacts to your actions as if you were really interacting with it.
To find out everything there is to know about each individual Toy-Con, read my hands-on impressions on page 2.
Nintendo Labo Toy-Cons: What each Toy-Con does
Nintendo Labo’s Toy-Cons come in two packages, the Variety Pack and the Robot Pack. The Variety pack contains five Toy-Con creations, while the Robot Pack contains the Toy-Con Robot creation. Each pack also, and somewhat confusingly, is also called a Toy-Con, with the Variety Pack numbered Toy-Con 01 and the Robot Pack numbered Toy-Con 02. Thankfully, individual Toy-Cons aren’t numbered and instead have names.
Having gone hands-on with each individual Toy-Con, here’s our roundup of each and every Nintendo Labo creation out there right now.
Toy-Con RC Car
Toy-Con RC Car is blissfully simple to use and is the perfect introduction to what Nintendo Labo is. Created out of a single piece of folded cardboard with the Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons inserted into slots either side of the contraption, you have yourself a scuttling, customisable RC Car to play with.
With Joy-Cons attached, the Switch’s touchscreen then becomes your controller. You operate the RC Car by independently vibrating each Joy-Con to move your car forward. You can tweak individual frequencies of each Joy-Con to make it turn faster or slower and fine-tune it to help with balancing issues or different surfaces.
The RC Car also has an auto-drive mode that uses the IR camera to follow a set of markers around the play environment. You can use some reflective tape to lay out a course on your table and have the RC Car follow its path. There’s also a multiplayer mode for you to battle it out in sumo matches with other RC cars, and the RC Car Toy-Con flat pack comes with a second car to make so you can use a second set of Joy-Cons you have to have multiplayer battles on the same Switch.
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Toy-Con House
At first glance, the Toy-Con House is a rather peculiar contraption. The main body of the house is little more than a shell for the Nintendo Switch to sit in. The real magic comes when you insert one of three tools into the sides of the house. Adding one in at a time changes actions within the room of the house, but combining two unlocks a slew of minigames to play through.
Inside the house is a friendly monster who just wants to play. Completing minigames gives you appearance-altering food to feed your monster and, though a little secret, you can save each of these different monster appearances in a special gallery for later.
There’s a certain charm to it that some of the other Toy-Cons lack and, due to its very nature as a house, it’s infinitely customisable so your kids will undoubtedly love it.
Toy-Con Motorbike
No, Toy-Con Motorbike isn’t a full-sized bike made of cardboard – as cool as that would be. Instead, it’s a set of handlebars and a support rest that lets you ride a virtual motorbike around a racecourse. You’ll rev the engine with a twist of the right handlebar and steer via a combination of leaning and turning the handlebars, just like a real motorbike.
On the surface, this seems like a neat motorbike racing game, one that lets you compete with friends and computer-controlled opponents on Excitebike-like courses. However, the real genius of Toy-Con Motorbike comes from its Stadium mode. At first glance, Stadium seems like an interesting creative space for building your own courses out of predetermined pieces. You can alter the weather and time of day and drive around on your creation.
However, Stadium really becomes amazing when you whip the right Joy-Con out from the handlebar and slip it into its scanning tool. The scanning tool, which is just a cardboard housing for your right Joy-Con, allows you to use the Switch’s IR sensor to scan in your own creations, creating a course out of earth right in the centre of the stadium. This means kids can draw a course on pieces of paper and have their creations materialise in front of their eyes. Another tool lets you use the Left Joy-Con’s motion sensor to draw a track in-game by flying around with your bike in real life. You could even create intricate courses out of Lego bricks in the real world and scan them into Toy-Con Motorbike to create a new race track.
It’s a stroke of absolute genius.
Toy-Con Fishing Rod
Of the mid-level Toy-Con creations, the Toy-Con Fishing Rod is the most fascinating. The string attached to the end of the rod and into the unit that houses the Switch screen really does look as if it’s linked directly up to the Switch. It’s seamless, with the on-screen fishing line and lures bobbing perfectly in time with your hand movements, swaying across the screen as you flick the rod from side to side.
In reality, it’s actually quite a dumb device, with the cardboard telescopic rod working simply through motion recognition alone. Cranking the handle doesn’t reel in your line at all, it simply tells the on-screen line to move up or down in relation to the way you’re spinning the Joy-Con.
The Fishing Rod game is a simple one of plumbing the depths of the sea in search of big game. When a fish bites, you flick the rod up and start reeling them in, paying close attention to the strain on the fishing line. There’s also some neat tricks hidden away where bagging a smaller fish onto your line could help you snag a bigger one that’s been lured in by your initial catch. You can also use a curious slot on the top of the Toy-Con Piano to enable the Switch’s IR camera to create new fish for your aquarium and to populate the sea with your unique, custom-made creatures.
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Toy-Con Piano
The Toy-Con Piano is, so far, my absolute favourite Toy-Con from Nintendo Labo. It works in the simplest of ways, just using the Switch’s IR sensor and a set of reflective strips to trigger new events, but in practice, it’s truly magical. Nothing has ever made me feel so much like a big kid before.
In terms of what you can do with Toy-Con Piano, Nintendo has built a musical experience that’s part Guitar Hero, part Wii Music. Tap the play button on the Piano’s main screen and you’ll be treated to a colour-coded rendition of a song that you can play along to. Because it’s a real piano layout, you’ll actually be able to transfer this knowledge over to a real piano and thus learn how to play some very basic music.
For the true virtuosos out there, there’s a deep composer mode you can use to create multi-layered recordings with the full range of notes a traditional piano would offer you. You can even use the Left Joy-Con’s motion controls to help keep time and, with some add-on bolts included in the Toy-Con Piano build, you can modify sounds to make your songs sound like meowing cats or sighing grumpy old men.
There’s also a curious little slot on the top of the Toy-Con Piano that you can use to modify your music by altering its tempo, volume and pitch.
Toy-Con Robot
Toy-Con Robot is the biggest of the Toy-Cons currently on offer. This cardboard creation is so mammoth it comes in its own Toy-Con pack separate from the rest and, when you see it in action, you can understand why. This Toy-Con is huge, you wear it as a backpack with handles and foot harnesses to move your robotic arms and legs. You’ll also don a visor that’s used for enabling a first-person view and function as the sensor for turning your huge contraption.
In terms of build time, I was told the Toy-Con Robot suit takes around four to five hours to put together and, when you open up the finished suit and peer inside, you can see how intricate everything is, even though it’s made entirely of cardboard. It’s a true wonder how anybody at Nintendo actually dreamt this stuff up in the first place and worked on building these prototypes out of, well, probably cardboard.
As it’s a standalone pack, it comes with its own set of games too, and it’s likely there’s an awful lot more to it than I’ve been given the opportunity to experience. While I romped around in a high-score alien-bashing, city-smashing arcade game, I spied a VS battle mode, a calorie-counting mode and a slightly more structured gameplay mode – whose name escapes me – hiding away on the menu screen.
I wouldn’t be surprised if, in time, Nintendo will open up its Robot suit to new abilities and possibly new games. It’d be absolutely fantastic if there was a way to get the Toy-Con Robot to work with Nintendo Switch fighting game Arms.
Nintendo Labo Toy-Con Garage: What is it?
Alongside all of these Toy-Cons, Nintendo Labo has a curiously wonderful creative mode called Toy-Con Garage. In its simplest form, Garage is a way to reprogram and repurpose your Toy-Cons to create new ones with different uses. Your only limit is your imagination and Nintendo really encourages you to think outside the box to dream up some wonderful new ways to experiment and play.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=5cRE95J4Xb4
Toy-Con Garage really does completely change how you use Nintendo Labo, expanding its features far beyond the cardboard creations Nintendo provides for you in the first place.
One example shown to me was using Toy-Con Motorbike to directly control the RC Car. It let you physically drive the RC Car buy revving the Motorbike engine and turning the handlebars. Others let you create your own contraptions simply by making your own cardboard structures and programming them through Toy-Con Garage. In the video Nintendo released alongside Garage’s announcement, we see one Nintendo engineer create a guitar out of a household broom and a bit of string.
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Toy-Con Garage seems to be intuitive and powerful enough to basically justify the asking price of Nintendo Labo’s Toy-Con packs on its own. It appears as if Nintendo has finally managed to crack the tricky subject of creating educational games that can give kids the ability to understand how things work and encourage them to learn about the tech that goes behind the toys they love to play with.
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