Nintendo showcases DIY games made with Labo's Toy-Con Garage

Nintendo has announced the winners of its first Labo Creator’s Contest, highlighting creative crafts and DIY games made using cardboard and Labo’s programmable Toy-Con Garage mode.

Nintendo’s official Labo kits on their own showcase a unique way to use some of the more novel features of the Nintendo Switch, but the winners and entries to the Labo Creator’s Contest take that one step further and offer a neat look at what can be accomplished with the Switch and some arts-and-craft know-how.

One winner, embedded above, used the motion sensors in the detachable Joy-Con controllers to create a Diner Dash style game called Tea Time where players have to interact with cardboard teapots to fill and serve different varieties of Nintendo-themed tea to customers. Joseph France, the creator of Tea Time runs through how the game is played in the video above, offering a peek at the code in the Toy-Con Garage that makes the game possible as well. 

Another game called Don’t Break the Line, created by Abe, uses Joy-Con IR cameras to create a coin-activated game where players have to slide a cardboard lever along to match prompts on the Switch screen and keep the on-screen line connected with the ones pained on the game’s cardboard enclosure. As an added bonus, a successful round causes candy to dispense from the game itself, helped along by a vibrating Joy-Con controller triggered by victory.

All in all, there were three categories in the contest’s first wave (best-decorated Toy-Con, best Toy-Con mod using Toy-Con garage, and best original invention using Toy-Con garage), with interesting uses of Labo to be found in each. A full list of winners, along with videos and descriptions for each, can be found on Nintendo’s website.