Nintendo Breaks Out Of The Box

Even the savviest observer of the Japanese video-game giant Nintendo couldn’t have predicted that the interactive gaming experience it announced last January would involve not a VR headset or a new Mario game, but perforated cardboard, colorful string, elastic bands, and plastic grommets.

- Harry McCracken

These resolutely low-tech items are the stuff of Labo (short for laboratory), a mindbendingly imaginative series of add-ons for the breakout Switch handheld console, which Nintendo introduced in March of 2017. As much maker projects as they are games, Labo’s DIY kits let you fold cardboard parts into smart toys that you can engage using the Switch. The $70 Variety Kit provides the makings of a piano and a fishing rod, along with a house, a motorbike, and two radio-controlled cars. Labo’s second offering, the $80 Robot Kit, contains parts for a visor and backpack that, once built, turn 

the wearer into a Transformers-style automaton. (Crouch down and your character can zip over terrain like a tank; stand up and raise your arms and it takes flight.)