Nintendo fans make amazing Luigi’s Mansion AR game by tinkering with Nintendo Labo【Video】

If Nintendo won’t make a sequel, you can make one yourself, and turn your home into a haunted house, for just a few bucks.

Ever since Nintendo unveiled its Nintendo Labo line of add-ons for the Switch video game console, detractors have scoffed at the company for having the nerve to sell, at lofty prices, build-them-yourself controllers that are made out of ordinary cardboard. But the truly impressive part of Nintendo Labo is the bundled Toy-Con Garage, a simplified programming system that lets innovative users create their own augmented reality-style games.

For example, Eisuke Fujinawa is apparently a fan of the 2001 GameCube launch title Luigi’s Mansion, but has gotten tired of waiting around for Nintendo to make a sequel. So rather than wait any longer, he made one himself that turns your home into a haunted house infested with ghostly Boos.

In the original game, Luigi’s ghost-busting apparatus is a special vacuum that sucks up ghosts, and the starting point for Fujinawa’s fan game is the Nintendo Labo Motorbike Toy-Con, which resembles the handlebars of a motorcycle. The rest of the equipment list is pretty simple; some cardboard, two magnifying glasses, and some stick-on infrared markers.

▼ The total cost for the magnifying glasses and stickers, all bought at 100 yen store Daiso, was 300 yen (US$2.70).

After spray-painting the outer side of the cardboard a snazzy gray color, Fujinawa attaches the lenses, with the larger lens inside the central casing and the smaller one on the outside, to create a projector effect. Also inside the central section are cradles for the right Joy-Con controller and the Switch unit itself. Meanwhile, the left Joy-Con goes into a section of the Motorbike handlebars, which is inserted into the back of the central casing to give the player something to hold on to.

Because this game is meant to be played in the real world, the infrared stickers don’t go anywhere on the ghost vacuum. Instead, you place them in whatever space you want to make into a haunted house. As such, Fujinawa’s Nintendo Labo version of Luigi’s Mansion is really a two-player game, with one person setting up the ghosts and another hunting and capturing them.

▼ Playing the game

In the video, once Fujinawa has set up all the ghosts (by placing the infrared stickers within a room), he turns off all the lights, and in goes his collaborator, Haruka Fujisawa. With the light emanating from the Switch as the only illumination, she swings the vacuum about until it’s pointed at one of the infrared stickers, at which point the Joy-Con’s camera picks up the signal and projects a ghost onto the wall!

Once you’ve spotted a ghost, pulling on the vacuum’s trigger taps the Joy-Con nestled inside the handle, which starts the capture sequence. As long as you keep the button held down, the ghost will get smaller and smaller, and if you swing the vacuum back and forth, the Joy-Con’s sensors will pick up the motion and speed up the process.

Unfortunately, Fujinawa and Fujisawa don’t elaborate on the nitty-gritty programming details, giving just a quick glance at what looks like some pretty extensive work in the Toy-Con Garage. Still, it’s amazing to think that something this cool can be made with just a basic Nintendo Labo set and a few extra bucks in parts.

Source: YouTube/Eisuke Fujinawa via Togech
Images: YouTube/Eisuke Fujinawa

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