Nintendo Labo Belongs in the Classroom @ GamesIndustry.biz

It’s hard to believe that two of the most-anticipated new releases of the month are a pair of cardboard construction kits from Nintendo. But here we are… the Nintendo Labo: Robot Kit and the Nintendo Labo: Variety Kit are at the top of every Switch owner’s wishlist.

When paired with the Switch’s Joy-Con Controllers, players can use the Nintendo Labo (sort for “Laboratory”) kits to build a piano, a fishing pole, an RC car, or a full-sized robot suit. A part of me still isn’t convinced that Nintendo Labo is a real product that’s really being sold by a multibillion dollar company. And yet, journalists like GamesIndustry.biz‘s Christopher Dring are convinced that Nintendo Labo’s greatest contribution to the gaming community will be in the classroom (or the library):

Labo is a series of games, and accompanying cardboard products, which work with the Nintendo Switch and its Joy-Con controllers. You can create a motorbike out of cardboard and use it to race in a game. Or a fishing rod to go fishing, or a RC car to judder and move across a flat surface. Or even a small piano. You can decorate these cardboard creations as you want, too. Hence the felt tip pens and bits of ribbon strewn throughout the room.

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The game we played contains a wealth of features, accessories and hidden modes that suggest there is a lot of enjoyment to be had. The most impressive of which might just be the game’s more ‘hardcore’ Garage mode. Garage lets gamers play around with the Nintendo Switch and its Joy-Con controllers to develop their own concepts and ideas, and even reprogram existing concepts. The Nintendo UK community manager had created his own shooting range, reprogrammed the fishing rod to control the RC Car, and even turned a Joy-Con into the world’s most expensive doorbell.

This is Labo’s undeniable strength – its an inspiration tool for a variety of different children. There’s the basics of engineering and programming taking place in here, not to mention the art and creativity that the concept prides itself on.

Nintendo Labo certainly offers a lot of creative possibilities, and even though it still sounds completely crazy, I think there’s definitely a place for the cardboard construction kits in schools and libraries.