Issue #33: Some Assembly Required – May/June 2018

Greetings once again, Nintendo Force fans! Our 33rd issue release is upon us.

In this edition of NF Magazine, we're celebrating the launch of Nintendo's latest, wildest product line. Nintendo Labo is the most off-the-wall idea the Big N has brought to market since the Switch itself! (Yes, I know it's only been a little over a year since then, but still!) The same pure creativity and fun that led them to fuse home console and portable gaming together into a single device has now driven them even further into territory never explored before by any other company in gaming, leading to further fusions of the Switch base unit and Joy-Con controllers with a cavalcade of cardboard creations.

We've prepared a full Nintendo Labo Launch Guide for your perusal, highlighting each unique build-it-yourself Toy-Con project Nintendo has sent to store shelves to kickstart this new line of products. We also look ahead at a few future Toy- Cons seemingly lurking just over the horizon, then do our best to contextualize the Labo launch in the light of Nintendo's entire history with an article that looks back on some of the toys they created in the decades before video games came into the world, and then another piece that presents some of the most "disposable" peripherals we've seen through their video game years as well.

All that and an exclusive reveal from and interview with Limited Run Games, a company that isn't exactly building things with cardboard, but is nonetheless making gaming more physical every day! The game they've so graciously allowed us to announce within our pages is historic, to say the least, so look forward to reading all about it!

In addition to that reveal of the game itself, Limited Run has also provided us with a set of exclusive trading cards depicting the game that will be inserted with the first 5,000 print copies of this issue. That should cover all of you who are Print and Combo tier patrons here as we're cutting off sign-ups for this issue, so look forward to getting that extra bonus alongside your magazine this time!

Also accompanying the magazine will be an exclusive new papercraft toy created just for us by Alex Gwynne, founder of Fold Up Toys. We usually provide wall posters with our issues, but I didn't think anyone would be too interested in having Nintendo's PR photos of the Labo products hanging up on their wall, so we swapped out the poster for a tangible toy you can build yourself! Print subscribers will get the toy provided for them in the bag, while our Digital patrons will get the PDF to be able to print one out at home. It's a fun little version of the Labo Robot Kit's giant robot, and I hope you'll all take the time to build it and let it join your desktop or amiibo shelf!

Because of all the different things happening with this issue, the timing of its publication will be a little different than usual. I normally send out the digital copies pretty much immediately after posting these Patreon "the issue is done" posts, but for this one I'll be sending out the digital links this Friday, April 20. That lets the issue release line up exactly with the Labo launch and also gives Limited Run Games a little bit more prep time before the game reveal in this issue becomes public knowledge and starts getting shared around the forums and gaming news sites around the Internet.

The Magzter version for tablets, eReaders, et cetera will follow a few days later, likely early next week.

Finally, the print version should start showing up in subscriber mailboxes in early-to-mid May. I realize the timing of that won't seem too on-the-ball with the Labo launch emphasis of the issue's content, but we just couldn't let something so fun and quirky and different like Labo pass us by without giving it an issue to headline! And you'll be snagging that Limited Run trading card as a trade-off for its not-so-timeliness, so hopefully we'll break even with your mind share in the end.

OK! Enough talking from me! Thanks as always for your continued support of the Nintendo Force, and keep your eyes peeled for this new issue to hit your email inbox and/or physical mailbox soon!

~ Lucas M. Thomas