Nintendo is making a bunch of weird DIY cardboard toys for the Switch and they’re awesome

Nintendo has long been the quirkiest major video game publisher, a company eager to buck industry trends in pursuit of fun. Last year, as competitors at Sony and Microsoft continued to turn consoles into living room PCs, Nintendo released a comparatively underpowered tablet that blurred the line between portable and home gaming, and turned it into a huge success.
Now, the company plans to follow up the red-hot debut of the Switch with a new initiative that taps into what Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima calls “new ways of playing” — and it involves a lot of cardboard.

Today, the company revealed a new initiative dubbed Nintendo Labo, which involves DIY cardboard accessories that can transform the Switch’s Joy-Con controllers into everything from a fishing rod to a piano to a full-on robot suit. These accessories are then used to control a variety of mini-games, essentially turning the Switch tablet into a tiny arcade. The goal of Labo is to get kids involved in playing games on the Switch in a more hands-on, tactile way.

It’s the kind of experience that seems like it could only come from Nintendo: clever, charming, and completely unexpected. “Labo is unlike anything we’ve done before,” says Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé. It could just be the thing to keep the Switch’s momentum going in its second year — but more importantly, it’s a whole lot of fun.
The Labo platform is defined by three key characteristics, according to Nintendo: make, play, and discover. The product itself comes in the form of a kit that includes a Nintendo Switch cartridge and a series of cardboard sheets, along with a handful of other building accessories like string and plastic connectors. After you pop the cartridge into the Switch, a series of on-screen instructions on the tablet take you through the steps for building each of the different accessories, which Nintendo is calling Toy-Con (a play on the Switch’s Joy-Con controllers). It’s a setup that is particularly well-suited to parents playing with their children; one person can handle the instructions, while the other builds.
The process of making these accessories varies quite a bit in terms of how complicated they are to put together, but each involves folding various bits of cardboard into shapes and fitting them together. I was able to test out a few of the simpler creations at a Nintendo event in New York City, and found the process incredibly streamlined — and surprisingly enjoyable. The first thing I built was a simplified RC car that looked a bit like a cardboard insect. The instructions displayed on the Switch screen took me through every detail of the process, and everything slotted together as it should