Close X
Sunday, November 24, 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

Kerala Fisherman Over Whose Back Women Climbed To Safety Gifted A Car

Kerala Fisherman Over Whose Back Women Climbed To Safety Gifted A Car
The pictures and video of the later identified fisherman Jaisal KP with many hailing the man for his heroic act. Appreciation the same, a Mahindra vehicles' dealer in Kozhikode gifted a brand new car to the fisherman.

Kerala Fisherman Over Whose Back Women Climbed To Safety Gifted A Car

This Kerala Man's Tea Serving Trick Is Leaving People Awestruck, Netizens Call Him 'Rajinikanth'

This Kerala Man's Tea Serving Trick Is Leaving People Awestruck, Netizens Call Him 'Rajinikanth'
The video, which went viral with over 3 lakh views at the time of writing, has left netizens quite confused. While many are impressed with the way the man is serving tea, others are quite intrigued by the way he does it.

This Kerala Man's Tea Serving Trick Is Leaving People Awestruck, Netizens Call Him 'Rajinikanth'

Khalsa Aid Founder Ravi Singh Gets Key UK Award

Ravinder Singh, the founder of Khalsa Aid, was presented with ‘The Award Of Excellence and Achievement In Your Chosen Vocation’ by the Punjabi Society Of British Isles during a ceremony in the British Parliament. 

Khalsa Aid Founder Ravi Singh Gets Key UK Award

WATCH: Kindergarten Principal Fired After Kids Receive Pole Dancer Welcome

WATCH: Kindergarten Principal Fired After Kids Receive Pole Dancer Welcome
The principal of a kindergarten in Shenzen, China, was recently axed after videos of children as young as three being welcomed back by scantly-dressed pole dancers went viral online.

WATCH: Kindergarten Principal Fired After Kids Receive Pole Dancer Welcome

This Woman Earns A Living Hugging Total Strangers

This Woman Earns A Living Hugging Total Strangers
"I could see their anxiety and tension melt away. Then I could get to the core of their persona and do what I can to heal them," O'Neill recently said.

This Woman Earns A Living Hugging Total Strangers

No Men Allowed At This Women-Only Comedy Show That Tackles Breasts, Bras And Bias

No Men Allowed At This Women-Only Comedy Show That Tackles Breasts, Bras And Bias
Men are strictly banned at Femapalooza, a comedy show for women where the punchlines range from breasts and bras to equal pay and censorship.

No Men Allowed At This Women-Only Comedy Show That Tackles Breasts, Bras And Bias