JaceTwice

The guardian has more details on all of it: https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/jan/17/nintendo-labo-cardboard-switch-models-interactive-toys

specifically on the piano:

Each contraption is made out of cardboard and string, and transforms into a digitally augmented toy when you slot Joy-Con controllers and the Switch screen into it. The piano, especially, is quite amazing, and takes about two hours to build. The infrared camera on the Joy-Con controller can see reflective strips of tape on the back of the keys, which come into view when a key is pressed, telling the game software to play the right note. Cardboard dials and switches modify the tone and add effects to the sound.

Seems pretty cool, a little pricey but given that it comes with the kit and the game (of which I assume will be the only game that comes out for this stuff) it sounds alright if you're interested. The engineer in me just likes how all this stuff is put together and moves around.

Awesome! Thanks for the replies and easing my worries. I had the feeling it'd be good for him but I juuust wanted to make absolutely sure I wasn't missing something.

Hello Giant Bomb. I've been torn on this game after seeing the quick look because I was super set on getting it for my dad for Christmas this year. I'm curious if anyone here that's been playing it for a while can shed some light on if the car unlocking/limited tracks/lootbox situatuion really tanks the game or can it still be enjoyed even with the limitations?

My dad dosen't have a lot of time for videogames at the moment but has enjoyed Gran Turismo 3, 4, and 6 in the past. I know the 1940's race cars are something he'd love and is a side of racing history rarely represented in videogames. I think he would be ok with the slow car unlocking as well. Previous experience with Gran Turismo has him accustomed to a slower progression and just buying new cars rather than tuning them to excess. However, it's the lootboxes and mods cards I'm a little worried about. He's not a big gamer so some of those systems might frustrate him if they're overly prevalent.

I can't say I am.

The entire conceit of amiibo from the start was to have a figure and the promise that it would unlock features related to that character in some way in a bunch of games. Nintendo is just doing what they said they'd do. I can see not liking what essentially amounts to expensive horse armor DLC if you only want it for one game but I think it's actually pretty cool to have a little thing that will unlock stuff in future nintendo games as well. I only have a few amiibo but getting extra stuff in mario maker, splatoon, animal crossing, picross 3d, and now BotW seems like a pretty good deal to me in addition to having K.K. Slider on my desk at all times.

I'm honestly surprised no-one's posted this yet:

I've used it. I pay 15 buckeroos a month for it. The last thing I would say about any of it is that it's awful. Hell I can find music I want to listen to faster on spotify than I can on my phone's default mp3 player.

The worst thing I'd say about spotify is that it's frustrating to see albums you like disappear and reappear every so often.

I dunno, seems pretty innocuous to me. Given that this is largely Inafune's project, I trust him with whatever decision he wants to make with the design of his characters and his game.

The only thing I will say is that the face of that fanart is way up there on the uncanny valley scale. The eyes have tear ducts!

I'll agree with you there. At this point there's so much bad press surrounding SC2013 that I can't see it ever really recovering, even if they did somehow address everyone's complaints and issue a non-shitty apology about it. Releasing the fixed game with everything they promised under a new name would probably be a good start to get people trusting the brand again.

(Also: the modding tools taking this long is hardly surprising. Not even SimCity 4 had modding support until a full year after it's release.)

Except that's exactly why there are discussions happening right now about how to open the game for modding. The concept of regions that don't tap into the multiplaye portions of the game are specifically so that modding can make sense. And yes they are working on making an offline mode.

This is actually pretty wrong, in the first post of the thread where they announced this, it's stated that the current guidelines are just a "first draft". Maxis devs are currently discussing potential strategies for supporting major mods on their forums.

Acceptable UGC and mods do not jeopardize the integrity of the gameplay or harm the experience of others.

UGC that effects the simulation for multiplay games and features are not allowed.

Examples of acceptable UGC include swapping art assets, like buildings and vehicles.

Maxis reserves the right to take disciplinary action against players who break the rules.

Nowhere does it say that cosmetic mods are the only thing they will allow for modding.

Regarding mods that effect simulation. Yes they've said they don't want mod like that to interfere with people's multiplayer games. (they used the example of someone joining a game and plopping down a factory that would spew endless pollution throughout the entire region) At the same time that thread has all kinds of discussions with devs about how to get around that, including tagging regions with mods in them, and special solo regions that allow for simulation mods.

All of it's in the thread on their forums and it's super disappointing that this article is spreading a message about modding in SimCity that simply isn't true.