Everybody 1-2-Switch! makes minigames massively multiplayer
polygon.comWhen the Nintendo Switch launched in 2017, 1-2-Switch arrived alongside it, serving as a showcase for the console’s new Joy-Con controllers. 1-2-Switch turned the Joy-Cons’ HD rumble and motion controls into minigames that didn’t offer much replayability. As a system showcase, Wii Sports it was not.
On the other hand, Everybody 1-2-Switch! — a game announced just weeks before its upcoming June 30 release — feels more enduring, based on a half-dozen minigames I played at a recent Nintendo event in New York City. Everybody 1-2-Switch! certainly goes further than the two-player games of 1-2-Switch, inviting up to 100 players to join in on its minigames.
That’s because Everybody 1-2-Switch! can be played not just with Joy-Cons, but, like the Jackbox Party Pack games, with smartphones as well. There’s a mix of gameplay styles here. Some minigames are Joy-Con-controlled only, and those support up to eight players at once. Some can be played with either style of input. Some are smartphone-only, like one where players are shown a color on screen and need to snap a photo of an object that most closely matches that color.
One of the first minigames I tried was called, simply, Balloons. My team of four went up against another team of four in an attempt to inflate an on-screen Mylar balloon by using a Joy-Con like the handle of a bicycle pump. The goal was to inflate that balloon to its largest size, without popping it. The motion-controlled inputs of me and my teammates were combined, meaning we had to quickly communicate to each other when to stop frantically miming our pumping motions. It was a fun, quick burst of gameplay, as we raced to fill our balloon to its near-breaking point.
As a Nintendo rep scrolled through the menu of
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