Close X
Friday, November 1, 2024
ADVT 
Interesting

How to turn your home into a Mario Kart racetrack

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 02 Oct, 2020 11:17 PM
  • How to turn your home into a Mario Kart racetrack

The popular Mario Kart series of games has seen the stars of the Nintendo universe race through deserts, haunted houses, ancient temples and myriad other exotic locales.

Next stop? Your living room, provided you have the space to host your own track.

"Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit" is a toy and video game combination that uses a "mixed reality" interactive experience to let gamers set up racetracks in their homes and drive them using their Nintendo Switch consoles.

The kit, which will be released Oct. 16, uses a Switch-controlled Mario Kart toy mounted with a camera to drive through checkpoints and create a track. Players can then drive that course, either in a single-player time trial, against AI opponents or in local multiplayer mode with up to three additional drivers.

The product includes the physical kart, featuring either Mario or his brother Luigi, four gates and a USB charging cable. The four gates serve as the checkpoints for racetrack creation and must all be used when creating a course.

The combination of using in-game tools with real-world objects offers a lot of creative potential when designing tracks. The gates can be customized with a variety of boons and traps familiar to Mario Kart enthusiasts, including items, speed boosts and Thwomps — massive stone blocks that smash down on the track. Courses can be assigned environments which have their own hazards, such as ice blocks that can freeze your cart.

Those digital enhancements can be combined with physical elements to make courses even more challenging. A demonstration video showed a cart plowing through a stack of cardboard boxes on the track, creating a series of hazards for other racers. Creative gamers will no doubt find no shortage of clever uses for everyday household items when making tracks.

If it all comes together, the result should be a classic Mario Kart racing experience boosted by creative input from gamers. So far it looks promising, as the demo showed Mario whipping around a custom course, using items to boost his speed and throw obstacles at opponents and avoiding traps in both the physical and digital realms.

Of course, like a physical toy racetrack, you'll need some room to set up. At a product demonstration a Nintendo spokesperson recommended an unobstructed space of roughly five square metres to lay out a track, which could be a challenge for those who live in apartments or condos, or in busy environments with a lot of foot traffic.

There are options if space is at a premium. Gates can be used several times per lap, and tracks can cross over each other to add complexity to a compact design. Compact tracks would need some pretty tight turns, so the toy kart would likely have to run at one of the lower available speed settings.

There is also the issue of price, especially with multiplayer races. The manufacture-suggested retail price of the kit is $129.99 — about $50 more than the average price of a newly released triple-A video game — and each player must have their own kart and their own Switch to participate. The software component of the product is free to download.

Also, as a physical kart is needed to play, there is no online connectivity. So in the product's current state, it's not possible to create a track then share it over the Internet with a friend.

While space and price are potential issues, "Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit" should deliver an intriguing experience to fans of the series. It remains to be seen how seamlessly the physical and digital products coexist, but the potential is there to satisfy kart racers and track builders alike.

MORE Interesting ARTICLES

Kitten survives in zipped shaving bag found in Victoria trash can

The black and white female kitten was taken to the pound and checked by a veterinarian.

Kitten survives in zipped shaving bag found in Victoria trash can

Researchers turn plastic waste into jet

To produce jet fuel, the researchers melted plastic waste at high temperature with activated carbon.

Researchers turn plastic waste into jet

Sikh man dons rainbow turban for Pride in California

Sharing an image of the elaborate creation on Twitter that has received nearly 30,000 likes, Kohli, who was also a former contestant on "The Great American Baking Show", celebrated what makes him unique

Sikh man dons rainbow turban for Pride in California

London museum may acquire 'Trump Baby Blimp'

The Museum of London on Monday announced its ambition to acquire two giant balloons depicting as babies US President Donald Trump and city Mayor Sadiq Khan as part of its permanent "Protest" collection

London museum may acquire 'Trump Baby Blimp'

Newborn southern resident whale calf spotted swimming in British Columbia waters

Department of Fisheries and Oceans marine mammal co-ordinator Paul Cottrell called the birth wonderful news.

Newborn southern resident whale calf spotted swimming in British Columbia waters

Toronto Raptors Donate Tickets To Raise Money For Family Of 4-Yr-Old Hit-And-Run Victim Radiul Chowdhury

The company that owns the Toronto Raptors is auctioning off a pair of tickets to Game 1 of the NBA Finals to support an employee whose son was the victim of a hit and run over the weekend.

Toronto Raptors Donate Tickets To Raise Money For Family Of 4-Yr-Old Hit-And-Run Victim Radiul Chowdhury