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A Game about 3D Mario Kart Cup

My playtime: ~30 minutes

Intro
Super Mario Kart Remake is a racing game with mario characters in 3D. The game has 3 different modes and 3 cups that consist of 4-5 tracks in total.

Graphics
The main menu looks like a cropped version of a mario game that is put in other graphics - it's out of sync. Most of the "cropped images" are in low-resolution and some characters in the character selection screen are looking different from each other.

There are also some issues with the UI. Most of the time, the game will ask you to press enter button to progress without telling you to do it - including the main menu. I was staring on the main menu for a few minutes because I thought that I had to watch a splash screen before the actual main menu show up.

I also noticed some characters that are custom-made in 3D. Although some looks cute, I find that their size comparison looks weird because Mario and Luigi looks like the same people (even though Luigi should be taller) and they look fat compared to Peach. I didn't play other characters though so I can't do more comparisons.

As for the track itself, I think that they look stiff. The coins are also too big (it almost have the same size as a pipe) and spins very slowly.

The game
Cup Selection
The game has 3 different difficulties, specified by 50 cc, 100 cc, and 150 cc respectively with 3 different cups: mushroom, flower, and star. The thing is, there is no way that I know about these informations if I didn't read the readme file. The game only asked me to do a selection when I started the game; the cup selection is also only written with the word mushroom, flower, and star without any "cup" word written next to it.

The game will proceed to character selection screen after you choose both the difficulty and the cup. I notice that the game remembers the previous selection since the cursor placed itself on the second character when I played flower cup. You also can't select a character with up and down arrow even though the character is shown in 4x2 grid.

Race
To be honest, I don't think the initial "ready, set, go" sound to be that clear and somehow my mind decided to play its own version that uses four marks and I messed up with the timing. The UI in this part is also confusing since I can't find the number of laps in the screen. I even thought the 1/8 refers to the number of laps at first. This becomes a problem since I don't know whether I'm in the final lap or not and each track has a different number of laps.

Tracks
There are ~5 tracks in each cup. Some of the tracks look similar to other tracks in different cups. You can see the track clearly although I find it hard to navigate the kart because turning the kart left and right always make me drift too far if I didn't release the accelerate button.

Powerups
The powerups are always placed in the beginning of the lap. It's hard to catch up with the enemies if you have fallen behind because of this. I also don't remember what each powerup do so I just spammed my space button to use it whenever I got one. The strange thing is, the enemy never take any powerups even though they pass right through it.

Some powerups are hard to utilize though; it's hard to knock people with the star powerup if you can't touch them and it's hard to control yourself when you use the mushroom powerup.

Difficulty
The game's difficulty is different based on the track. However, most of the tracks are either too hard or too easy, seeing that I'm either far ahead or behind the enemies. It's also difficult to catch up with the enemies because you might bump into them and lose coins, forcing you to spin around and lose more time.

I also find it to be weird that the bots look like they are making a line on the race. I always find all of them to go through the same route with different speed. This makes a problem when I accidentally bumped into them; I'll bump into all of them until I went spinning because the game has no invicibility frame to protect me when I just bumped into someone.

Rankings
You'll get points based on your placement in each tracks. The overal rankings will determine your final ranking. Howevever, I find that the rankings to be bugged when I played Peach. I used her on Star cup and her name is replaced by D.K. in the second track. She also didn't get the first place points even though I placed first with her in the last track.

I also find that the font for the number in the rankings and the race result to be different. The ranking score is also not sorted from the highest to lowest since I tend to see some characters who have more than zero scroes below the ones with zero.

Lastly, I find it weird that the game auto closes after you finish the cup.

Pros:
- 3 difficulties
- 3 different cups

Cons:
- Enemies don't use powerups
- You can't see the current lap

Conclusion
It's a short racing game with a lot of problems and unclear UI. I enjoyed it at one point since it feels like I'm playing in no powerup mode but the enemy AI is too weird that I feel like I'm playing solo. There's also the confusing UI that needs to be improved. All in all, it still needs a lot of improvement although I admit that the core of the game is working fine.

---
Bugs:
- I'm not sure if it's a bug or not, but the game catapulted me when I used the speedup powerup and fell from the track; I suddenly fly slowly a bit until I accidentally fell down again to another "hole".

Posts

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thanks for the fair review. I can answer some of the reasons for some of the problems but I don't want to sound like Im trying to defend myself.

Mario and Luigi were recolors in the original Mario kart(which this is a remake of)

Tracks being stiff? do you mean that they are a bit flat? if so the original was completely flat(Mode 7) I tried to add a little depth but still keep it the same

Coins to big, Yep I agree.

No cup next to Mushroom, Flower or Star. That's how the original was but I agree I should have changed that.

Cannot select a character with up and down(That's because I sucked at programming)

The drift mechanic was always overly exaggerated in the original but I think I may have made it worse and kinda clunky. Instead of trying to emulate the original over exaggerated drift I should have just made my own drift and had done with that.

The computer characters never picked up powerups in the original and even though it would have been cool to make them pick up and use powerups. I was running out of time and also a bit crap at these things.

Difficulty being unbalanced was just a case of me being crap

If that was the only Bug you found you were lucky as there are numerous bugs and some are game breakers.

As for all the other issues you had with the game I sucked at programming back then and botched my way through.

Thank you for the review. I wish I could fix the issues you mentioned but I lost all of the code many years ago.
author=grindalf
thanks for the fair review. I can answer some of the reasons for some of the problems but I don't want to sound like Im trying to defend myself.
i don't mind with that actually. I know this is made in a contest (read the log file before playing) but i can't just leave the problems off the review because of that since it will be unfair

Mario and Luigi were recolors in the original Mario kart(which this is a remake of)
ah, i never played the actual game tbh so i didn't know that.

Tracks being stiff? do you mean that they are a bit flat? if so the original was completely flat(Mode 7) I tried to add a little depth but still keep it the same
umm.. kinda. Some tracks are just too square-y (i can't think of a better phrase than that) and im kinda surprised that the track with the hole doesnt have any depth in it when i fell down the hole..

No cup next to Mushroom, Flower or Star. That's how the original was but I agree I should have changed that.
adding a text such as "select the cup" or something might be a good alternatice too.

The drift mechanic was always overly exaggerated in the original but I think I may have made it worse and kinda clunky. Instead of trying to emulate the original over exaggerated drift I should have just made my own drift and had done with that.
ah, i see. Perhaps it's because the game doesn't have a screeching sound when i drift so the experience is kinda unpleasant on this one.

The computer characters never picked up powerups in the original and even though it would have been cool to make them pick up and use powerups. I was running out of time and also a bit crap at these things.
ah. Seeing the bots hitting each other is one of the joys in powerup mode tho. It's strange that they didn't introduce it in the original.



If that was the only Bug you found you were lucky as there are numerous bugs and some are game breakers.
probably. I played it safe and always go in the middle track anyway since i wanted to win (i didn't win the last cup tho since i chose the hardest diffuculty)

Thank you for the review. I wish I could fix the issues you mentioned but I lost all of the code many years ago.
no problem! I'm kinda impressed that you manage to make it within the time limit for the contest. You can always use the improvement for your next game anyway in case you want to make another racing game.
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