The educational aspect of the Nintendo Labo kits for the Switch has always been foremost in my mind. The entire experience is designed to teach maker skills such as patience, persistence, and the reward of having built something cool. Nintendo realizes this as well, with their Labo educational program.
The cherry-on-top of the Labo experience is the play itself, where the Labo creations add a tactile aspect to the video game.
Now, Labo has gone a step further, into virtual reality. In doing so, it creates an immersive and unique experience that not only requires the player to move around a bit (no sitting hunched over a console) but also offers players a chance to look under the hood and see how video games are created.
In short, the educational aspects of Labo now include maker skills, problem-solving skills inherent in video games, and game design.
Not to mention a 360-virtual reality experience from a VR headset that you create yourself.
GeekDad Z and I played with (and I do mean played!) the pre-built VR kits on our trip to New York City on Tuesday for Nintendo’s preview of the Nintendo VR Labo kits that will be available April 12th.
All the VR Toy-Con products include what you’d expect for 3D: one that puts the player inside the game. We tried out the Toy-Con Blaster, the Toy-Con Elephant, the Toy-Con Bird, and the VR Plaza, which contains 64 mini-games. The VR plaza is where you can look under the hood at the code that creates the game, modify those games yourself, or create an entirely new one. These games can also be played in 2D as well and have multi-player functions.
My favorite was the Blaster, as there was something viscerally satisfying at using the Labo Toy-Con creation in conjunction with defeating the aliens. But the Toy-Con bird has an immersive experience so far as setting the playing down in a new world, where you are the bird that explores his world, controlling the direction and also the speed by flapping the bird’s wing.
Still, the coolest of the Toy-Cons that we tried may well be the Toy-Con Elephant. Yes, it truly looks like an elephant trunk. We each used the Doodle game to literally draw creations in the air by moving the trunk around. My first thought after finishing was that this would be a terrific tactile game for those who struggle with motor skills, such as handwriting or drawing. That’s because it’s almost as much fun to open the trash can and suck up the inferior creation as it is to draw it in the first place. There is no fear of failure. Instead, destroying what you create becomes fun.
Similarly, while these kits are made to be enjoyable (of course), because they are tactile and immersive, they may be a new way to teach kids various skills. Like the Toy-Con Camera, a 3D exploration of an ocean world that allows the player to take photos/screenshots and save them. There’s no “contest” here, just an ability to let a child explore on their own. Yes, a virtual world is not as good as a real world, but many kids never have the chance to, say, go snorkeling in the real world.
So the steps now become:
Nintendo Labo VR kit launches on April 12th. From Nintendo’s press releases:
This post was last modified on March 21, 2019 9:14 pm
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