Super Mario Kart: The Game That Invented Kart Racing

GameSuper Mario KartSuper Nintendo

The game that invented kart racing without ever setting out to. Released on August 27, 1992 in Japan on the Super Nintendo, it lines up eight pilots, twenty tracks and a screen permanently split in two. This profile looks back at its accidental origins, at Mode 7, and at the 1992 inventions the series has kept.

The whole history of Mario Kart begins on a Super Nintendo cartridge. Before the millions of online players, there is a 1992 title offering twenty layouts and eight pilots, and inventing an entire genre along the way.

What makes it interesting is not its age. Super Mario Kart is above all a game that was never meant to exist : its most famous ideas were born of a hardware constraint or an abandoned project. They are the ones that explain the formula.

Contents

• A game born out of F-Zero's multiplayer
• Mode 7, the split screen and the four modes
• Eight pilots, four builds
• Twenty tracks, four cups and Rainbow Road
• The items of 1992, and what the series has kept
• Quick facts
• FAQ

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A game born out of F-Zero's multiplayer

At the outset, the team was not trying to race karts, but to build a multiplayer mode for F-Zero, the Super Nintendo's futuristic racing game. The brief therefore had nothing to do with a karting competition.

The prototype did not even put Mario behind the wheel: the original pilot was a generic character in dungarees, before the Mushroom Kingdom cast took over.

Development fell to Nintendo EAD, with production by Shigeru Miyamoto. Direction was shared between Tadashi Sugiyama and Hideki Konno, who was born on May 13, 1965 in Chiba and joined Nintendo in April 1986. The game is his founding work: he would direct the next entry on his own, and then produce the whole series.

The result was released on August 27, 1992 in Japan, the same year in North America, and only in early 1993 in Europe: the first entry in the saga, and its first hit.

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Mode 7, the split screen and the four modes

The technical innovation has an engineer's name: Mode 7. It is what produces the pseudo-3D perspective effect that, in 1992, gave the impression of really driving.

• Mode 7 scales and rotates a single background layer : hence a ground that scrolls in perspective, and scenery left as flat sprites.
• The screen is permanently split in two, even in single player: the bottom half shows the track map. The constraint becomes a tool for reading the race.
• The cartridge carries a coprocessor called DSP-1, in charge of Mode 7's perspective calculations: a chip already used by Pilotwings, which Super Mario Kart pushes to full throttle here.

This ever-available half-screen explains a second lasting invention: split-screen Battle mode, played by two players in four dedicated arenas, each kart starting with three balloons to burst.

Four modes coexist: Mario Kart GP, Time Trial, the two-player Match Race and Battle. Time Trial introduces the replayable ghost, the ancestor of today's ghosts.

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Eight pilots, four builds

The game invents the in-house cast formula with eight characters from the Mario universe : Mario, Luigi, the Princess, Yoshi, Bowser, Donkey Kong Jr., Koopa Troopa and Toad. The grid is already designed in pairs by build.

• Heavy and fast : Bowser and Donkey Kong Jr.
• Balanced : Mario and Luigi.
• Good acceleration : the Princess and Yoshi.
• Maximum handling : Toad and Koopa Troopa.

Toad makes his driving debut here and already stands out for his handling and his speed. Donkey Kong Jr., for his part, remains a one-off : playable in this entry only, he will never come back in any other Mario Kart.

Another quirk that has since disappeared: every computer-controlled pilot hasa signature item. Bowser and Donkey Kong Jr. throw fireballs, the Princess and Toad scatter a poison mushroom, Yoshi drops his eggs. Lakitu, meanwhile, is already the referee: the start, the flag, the lap number and fishing out pilots who have gone off the track.

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Twenty tracks, four cups and Rainbow Road

The game has twenty tracks, spread across four cups of five races: Mushroom Cup, Flower Cup, Star Cup and Special Cup. Three engine classes structure the championship: 50 cc, 100 cc and 150 cc.

These twenty layouts are spread across just eight settings : Mario Circuit, Donut Plains, Ghost Valley, Choco Island, Koopa Beach, Vanilla Lake, Bowser Castle and Rainbow Road.

This is where the saga's legendary track is born. Rainbow Road sets its two rules from the outset: it is the last track of the Special Cup, and it is raced in a space setting with few or no barriers. The void is part of the layout.

Its musical theme is by Soyo Oka, in the key of C major. Kenta Nagata, the name instinctively associated with Mario Kart music, does not take part here: he would join the series with the next entry.

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The items of 1992, and what the series has kept

The 1992 arsenal is short, but the essentials are already there: several items present in every Mario Kart were born on this cartridge, and their original behaviour has barely changed.

• The banana peel makes its big debut: it causes a spin-out on contact and serves as a projectile as much as a mobile shield.
• TheLightning Bolt strikes all opponents at the same time, shrinks them, and then lets you flatten them.
• The Super Star combines invincibility, speed and impact : any kart it touches is knocked over.
• The Dash Mushroom is already used to cut across the grass or to extend a jump.

One figure dates a mechanic people believe is recent: the Lightning Bolt only appears from fifth place or below, with a probability of the order of a mere 3%. The gift item reserved for those at the back exists as early as 1992.

One item, on the other hand, has almost never been seen again: the Cape Feather, which gives the kart a great leap over the low walls. Exclusive to this entry, it would only reappear in the Battle mode of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and then in Mario Kart World in 2025.

The coins picked up on the track raise the top speed and act as a reserve: with no coin, a pilot spins out at the slightest knock. The hop, on the shoulder button, starts the drift — but the mini-turbo that rewards it would not arrive until the next entry.

The game founds the kart racing genre — with sales estimated by outside sources at about 8.76 million copies — and its twenty layouts form the series' first bank of retro tracks, which Mario Kart: Super Circuit would bring back into play in 2001.

Mario Kart 64 takes over in 1996, and the 1992 title has never really left circulation : Virtual Console, Super NES Classic Edition and the Super Nintendo app on Nintendo Switch Online.

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Super Mario Kart at a glance

Type	Racing game
Platform	Super Nintendo
Japanese release	August 27, 1992
Development	Nintendo EAD, produced by Shigeru Miyamoto
Direction	Hideki Konno and Tadashi Sugiyama
Pilots	8, in pairs by build
Tracks	20, in 4 cups of 5 races
Innovations	Mode 7 and split-screen Battle

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FAQ

• When was Super Mario Kart released?
  On August 27, 1992 in Japan, the same year in North America, and then in early 1993 in Europe. It is the very first entry in the saga, on the Super Nintendo.
• How many playable characters does Super Mario Kart have?
  Eight: Mario, Luigi, the Princess, Yoshi, Bowser, Donkey Kong Jr., Koopa Troopa and Toad. They work in pairs by build, and Donkey Kong Jr. will never be playable again in any other Mario Kart.
• What is Mode 7?
  A Super Nintendo graphics mode that scales and rotates a single background layer: the ground scrolls in pseudo-3D perspective, the scenery stays as flat sprites.
• How many tracks does Super Mario Kart contain?
  Twenty tracks, in four cups of five races, drawn from just eight settings. Three engine classes structure the championship: 50 cc, 100 cc and 150 cc.
• Which item is exclusive to this entry?
  The Cape Feather, which gives the kart a great leap over the low walls. It would only reappear in the Battle mode of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and then in Mario Kart World in 2025.

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