The Banner Saga

Paper-Made Digital Games: The Poetic of Cardboard from Crayon Physics Deluxe to Nintendo Labo

The paper argues that the cardboard interfaces of Nintendo Labo, released in 2018, represent the culmination of a broader aesthetic movement in digital games that Mattia Thibault calls "paper-made digital games."

• Mattia Thibault's paper argues that Nintendo Labo (2018) is the culmination of a broader aesthetic movement he calls "paper-made digital games," in which the material presence of cardboard is deliberately poetic rather than merely practical.
• The author draws on the post-digital paradigm, which describes contemporary disenchantment with digital systems and renewed appreciation for analogue media, to explain the appeal of paper and cardboard in games.
• The paper proposes a three-part typology of paper-made games by depth of material relationship: imitation (e.g., Crayon Physics Deluxe, Tearaway), digitization (e.g., Cuphead, The Banner Saga, Lumino City), and hybridization, where cardboard becomes part of the interface (e.g., Google Cardboard, Nintendo Labo).