Nintendo Labo: Toy-Con 01 – Variety Kit Review: Cardboard That Becomes a Controller

Nintendo Labo: Toy-Con 01 – Variety Kit turns a stack of pre-cut cardboard into five working controllers for the Nintendo Switch. It is a building set, a toy and a video game at once, and it asks players to do something unusual: assemble the hardware before they can play the software.

The Variety Kit arrived in 2018 from Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 4 and Nintendo. It is a single-player simulator with educational and kids themes, played in first person and side view. The pitch is plain enough. Make two Toy-Con RC Cars, a Fishing Rod, a Motorbike, a House and a Piano, then find out how the Switch brings them to life.

Cardboard That Becomes a Fishing Rod

The build is the first half of the game, and it is not a tutorial you click through. Players fold engineered, pre-cut cardboard sheets into working objects, following interactive instructions on the Switch screen. The RC Cars, the Fishing Rod, the Motorbike, the House and the Piano each take shape by hand.

Then the kit asks you to play with what you made. Steer the RC Car, reel in fish from the ocean, drive the Motorbike, interact with a creature in the House, and play tunes on the Piano. The Switch’s technology is what makes the cardboard respond, and the kit points players toward Toy-Con Garage to invent new ways to play.

That structure is the whole idea, and it is worth stating plainly: Nintendo Labo: Toy-Con 01 – Variety Kit is a game you build before you can play it.

Five Toy-Con, Five Different Jobs

Each build in the Variety Kit does a different job, and the kit spreads its bets across them. The RC Cars are the simplest. The Fishing Rod, the Motorbike, the House and the Piano each carry more cardboard and more play.

The Piano reaches furthest. Players can play quick tunes with the Toy-Con Piano, or record their own music. Catch in-game fish with the Toy-Con Fishing Rod, then view what you’ve caught or create original fish with Toy-Con Piano in Aquarium mode.

The House is the strangest of the five. Insert blocks into your Toy-Con House to feed a creature, play minigames with it, and who knows what else. The kit does not spell out the ending, and that is deliberate.

Racing the CPU on the Motorbike

The Motorbike is where the kit comes closest to a conventional game. Race the CPU with the Toy-Con Motorbike, collect targets on bumpy terrain, or create your own tracks. The RC Cars split the difference between solo and social play. Steer the Toy-Con RC Car manually, have it self-drive, or challenge a friend to a match with two Toy-Con RC Cars.

That asterisk matters. The kit ships with two RC Cars, but a two-player match needs both of them built and both players at the table. It is a small thing, and it is the kind of small thing that decides whether a kit gets played twice or sits on a shelf.

Toy-Con Garage Is the Real Game

Toy-Con Garage is the part of Nintendo Labo: Toy-Con 01 – Variety Kit that outlasts the cardboard. The included mode lets players invent new ways to play with each Toy-Con project in the Variety Kit, or create their very own.

This is where the kit stops being a set of five toys and becomes a tool. The five builds teach the inputs. The Garage asks what else those inputs can do. A player who finishes the Piano and the Motorbike has learned how the Switch reads cardboard, and the Garage hands them the keys.

The kit also invites players to grab their own markers, stickers and more to customize their Toy-Con creations. That is not a bonus feature. It is an admission that the cardboard is meant to be marked up, worn down and made personal.

What Each Build Asks of You

The table shows the kit’s shape. Four of the five builds are solo activities. Only the RC Cars support a second player, and only if both cars are built. For a kit built around cardboard, glue and a shared table, that is a narrower social footprint than the box suggests.

The Cardboard Is the Point

Nintendo Labo: Toy-Con 01 – Variety Kit is not a game that happens to include cardboard. The cardboard is the game. Fold the sheets, fit the parts, and the Switch reads the result. Skip the build and there is nothing to play.

That makes the kit slow in a way most games are not. It also makes it disposable in a way most games are not. Cardboard creases. Cardboard tears. A Piano that has been played for a month is not the Piano that came in the box.

The kit knows this. It tells players to bring their own markers and stickers. It treats wear as customization rather than damage. That is a generous read, and it is also the honest one.

The five builds vary in how much they reward the work. The Piano and the Motorbike carry enough play to justify the folding. The RC Cars are quick to build and quick to exhaust. The House is a curiosity that the kit refuses to explain, which is either its best quality or its most frustrating one.

A Kit That Teaches Before It Entertains

The Variety Kit is an educational toy first and a game second, and it does not hide that. It is rated for kids, built around first-person and side-view play, and designed for a single player at a table. The five Toy-Con projects are lessons in how the Switch’s technology reads motion and touch, dressed up as a fishing trip and a motorbike race.

The Garage is the graduation. A player who masters the five builds and then opens the Garage has learned to make their own controllers out of cardboard, which is a stranger and more useful skill than any high score.

The kit’s limits are real. It is solo for most of its builds. It wears out. It asks for patience before it gives anything back. And its five projects are not equally worth the folding.

What it does better than almost anything else in the Switch library is make the hardware legible. Players who finish the Piano understand something about the Joy-Con they did not understand before. That is a rare thing for a game to teach.

Nintendo Labo: Toy-Con 01 – Variety Kit earns its place as a first experiment rather than a finished idea. The build is the best part, the Garage is the smartest part, and the play is uneven across the five. It is worth the cardboard.

Cardboard Gaming · game review · Nintendo · Nintendo Labo · Nintendo Switch · Toy-Con Variety Kit