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Fun Club Missed Opportunity: Trombone Champ should have released alongside a Labo Trombone

Derachi

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Trombone Champ was announced and release during the last Nintendo Direct. I bought it and, oops. it's genuinely one of the funniest video games I've ever played!!!! Also: it's VERY fun!!

One smart thing it did was have a number of control options: tilting the controller. using the analog stick, and most importantly, using the IR camera to let you move your hand back and forth to play. It works... well enough, but is super fun to do. But it left me wanting...

They should have released a Labo Trombone to go alongside Trombone Champ.


Think about it, it'd be easy to implement! You'd just need to put the right Joy-Con into the slide-y bit, have some of those reflective stickers on the non-slide-y bit, and as you slide it back and forth, is uses the stickers to determine the depth and input the pitch of the trombone. The Left Joy-Con could be used on the handle-bit and had the shoulder button operate as the "toot" button.

They could have sold Labo Trombone kits online as a separate, optional purchase that I'd absolutely have picked up. Or maybe they could have supplied the plans for it online and had users supply their own cardboard.

Anyway, I think they should have made a Labo Trombone for Trombone Champ. What do you think? Do you need more cardboard in your life?
 
Trombone Champ was announced and release during the last Nintendo Direct. I bought it and, oops. it's genuinely one of the funniest video games I've ever played!!!! Also: it's VERY fun!!

One smart thing it did was have a number of control options: tilting the controller. using the analog stick, and most importantly, using the IR camera to let you move your hand back and forth to play. It works... well enough, but is super fun to do. But it left me wanting...

They should have released a Labo Trombone to go alongside Trombone Champ.

Think about it, it'd be easy to implement! You'd just need to put the right Joy-Con into the slide-y bit, have some of those reflective stickers on the non-slide-y bit, and as you slide it back and forth, is uses the stickers to determine the depth and input the pitch of the trombone. The Left Joy-Con could be used on the handle-bit and had the shoulder button operate as the "toot" button.

They could have sold Labo Trombone kits online as a separate, optional purchase that I'd absolutely have picked up. Or maybe they could have supplied the plans for it online and had users supply their own cardboard.

Anyway, I think they should have made a Labo Trombone for Trombone Champ. What do you think? Do you need more cardboard in your life?
This...is brilliant.
 
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I absolutely adored the shooter Labo VR controller thing for how tactile it was. This would've been a great control option, yeah.

However, you know as well as I do that it takes 1,000 workers a full year to produce a single trombone. I'm not sure I could've completed a crude LABO recreation by myself in my lifetime.
 
I absolutely adored the shooter Labo VR controller thing for how tactile it was. This would've been a great control option, yeah.

However, you know as well as I do that it takes 1,000 workers a full year to produce a single trombone. I'm not sure I could've completed a crude LABO recreation by myself in my lifetime.
It would also take approximately 200 tonnes of cardboard, so I guess it would have been cost prohibitive
 
I am already struggling to store the existing labo sets at home, don't do this to me.

With that said, doesn't the game already have motion control and IR camera controller setups? It might actually already be possible to Lab (haha) something with cardboard and reflective tape 🤔
 
I am already struggling to store the existing labo sets at home, don't do this to me.

With that said, doesn't the game already have motion control and IR camera controller setups? It might actually already be possible to Lab (haha) something with cardboard and reflective tape 🤔
It would depend on what it’s looking for with the IR camera. If it’s simply looking for distance to a flat surface, it’d be easy enough to cheese. If it was looking for a hand in particular, or needs the surface detail of a hand to measure the distance, it’d be a bit more complicated.
 
Even funnier, due to the construction material, the trombone might end up being comically huge.

Bonus points if it ends up working independently from the software itself.
 
I always felt Nintendo really poorly leveraged the Labo concept.

The big problem was that they locked the idea behind expensive, dedicated software.

What they should have done instead is sell the cardboard kits on their own for more reasonable prices, and made the software downloadable and free.

They could have made the educational kits they ended up releasing...but they could have also made "controller" kits that basically let you create custom controllers to be used with compatible games. Kind of like the Wii accessories thing, but with more of that DIY spin.
 
I always felt Nintendo really poorly leveraged the Labo concept.

The big problem was that they locked the idea behind expensive, dedicated software.

What they should have done instead is sell the cardboard kits on their own for more reasonable prices, and made the software downloadable and free.

They could have made the educational kits they ended up releasing...but they could have also made "controller" kits that basically let you create custom controllers to be used with compatible games. Kind of like the Wii accessories thing, but with more of that DIY spin.

They sort of tried something like this with the VR kit, but I always felt it was a bit too late for that, and they sort of didn't really set it up that well (The separate kits were still huge boxes, which... has a bunch of negative implications for retail products, especially if they're a bit more niche), so I agree with this take.

I feel they should have made the labo software a free download to save on card costs, sold each toy kit as a small, flatpak envelope kind of thing with a code to enable its building instructions and associated game elements. Lower costs and make them sort of a collectible thing.
 
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