It’s long been a belief of mine that anything can be a kart racer. After all, if the Crazy Frog – which had the inspiration of a single music video – could get two! kart racers, surely it must hold true? So, I had the idea to give it a try. Not with things I’m familiar with, and not with things that easily lend themselves to a kart racer.

I wanted to truly be surprised at the results I could bring, so I asked GRcade for ideas on what could be turned into a kart racer. The only restrictions I put in place were that anything previously used in a kart racer would not be allowed. And while less strict on this one, I needed enough material to work with for a minimum of eight characters and three track themes.

There were some great suggestions given (along with a few wacky ones), but those I have chosen to focus on detailing give me a challenge. Some require stretches of the material to make them work, but what is presented still fits the core of the theming. To start with, turning a subgenre of games into a kart racer.

The walking simulator might be an ironic one to turn into a kart racer, but there are things that can be transferred from one to the other. Kart racers aren’t usually held up for their expertly crafted stories, but there’s no reason why one couldn’t try. Through the same means as the walking simulator, environmental interaction is key. But… it’s meant to be a racing game! True, but hear me out.

The environments that you drive are designed like racetracks with multiple layouts all connected. It is just you as a character on them, exploring the area for anything of note. Interacting with the important objects found reveals part of the story that happened. There are several parts to each of the individual stories at each location, that once complete, will open a race that offers up a retelling of that story.

Only a specific story of the several each location includes needs to be completed to move on, as each of those specific ones relates to the quest the main character is on. While the others are optional, they give greater context to the events that took place. Each of the races has two or three major characters relating to the story on track, along with minor ones to fill spaces on the grid.

Now, as ironic as it is for a kart racer to be designed after a walking simulator, it is also the opposite of some of the best walking simulators you can find. If you want an emotional response from the player, the bright-coloured, fast-paced action of a racing game isn’t the best setting. But something close can happen. Tracks designed with less saturated colours. Music that is quiet. And an item system that isn’t the standard fare.

To feel and understand the stories being told, the main character is using time echoes. As such, the energy from those echoes during races is emanating from all other racers. The closer to one you are, the faster you collect energy. This energy is used to perform abilities such as speed boosting or placing a shockwave to slow other racers. It’s a system that encourages close racing to start, then pulling away on the last lap.

Since there’s a story being told during the race – the speed of which is similar to 100cc of Mario Kart, it allows that story to be told in full. It is very much a single-player game, with only the main adventure mode to play. As such, it might not be considered a kart racer by many, but it sure would be a very weird fusion of genres.

Austin Powers! Another odd choice for a kart racer, considering the amount of innuendos and other sexual themes present within the films. But did you know there was going to be one? For the Dreamcast? Developed by Rockstar? Development stopped because the team felt they couldn’t transfer the humour to a kart racer. Surely that’s possible now, over twenty years later and two other films to work with?

The obvious way to get that humour in is with some sort of adventure mode. An original story that never takes itself seriously to the point it even includes some meta commentary on why certain things have to be done through races. Not too much, however. Don’t want to run that joke dry by including it every few races. The spy theme will still be present, not only through the story, but also with the items.

There will be no items on the track. Instead, there will be love hearts, representing mojo. The more mojo you have, the more powerful your weapons become. Holding down the item button will fill it with mojo, with a three-tier system indicating how powerful it will be when released. You will always have access to items that are split into three categories that can be cycled through.

Single-shot items are exactly as they sound. A single projectile fired forward or backwards. The splosh items cover the ground in a substance. Safety items offer up protection from projectiles and substances. Each character has their own unique items. Though the effects of them can be the same, each would be styled after the character using them.

While there are no arena modes available here, there’s a few racing modes other than just standard racing. Free love mode disables items but keeps the mojo. That mojo becomes limitless, used to increase the speed of your vehicle with no limit. But should you crash into something or end up off-road, you’ll lose mojo. The Cool School is another one, where the objective isn’t to win, but get the most points through various actions, with the mojo you finish with also adding to those points.

These next two were somewhat easier to think of ideas for, despite seeming like they’d be harder. After all, how would you make a kart racer based on Tetris? By allowing you to create your own vehicle with each Tetromino representing a specific stat. Speed, acceleration, handling, luck, and skill. The first three are typical racing fare, but the other two? Those are for the item equivalent.

Yup, there’s no pick-up and use items here. Instead, you’re playing Tetris. Or at least, the game is playing Tetris for you. Since you’re focused on racing, it would be wrong to expect that focus to be split. That’s why both the luck and skill stats are there. Luck handles which Tetromino you’ll get, while skill handles how it would be placed.

What happens when you manage a line depends on the last Tetromino placed to create that line. The one handling speed gives a temporary top speed boost. Acceleration auto-targets the nearest player with a projectile. Handling will temporarily allow off-road driving. Luck will wipe the board clean. Skill will auto-target every other player with a projectile.

Should the board be full (which, being shorter than a regular one, likely won’t take long without any lines being cleared), your vehicle’s engine will stop as the board resets. If you feel you can do better than the auto-player, you could always swap to the Tetris player instead. The auto-player takes control of the kart, with the skill stat then being used to determine how good they are at racing.

Since there is a limit on the amount of Tetrominos you can use to build that kart, maxing all the stats isn’t possible. Unless there was a way to not need the skill stat. Co-op would allow that. There’s two roles here, so it makes sense to have a co-op mode where one player races and the other is playing Tetris. Since doing this would bring an advantage when going online racing, it wouldn’t be possible in regular matches. But an exclusive co-op online mode? Sure.

This last one is an interesting idea to adapt, but I’m not sure it would hold much general appeal. It would adapt the Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri known as The Divine Comedy, a story that represents one person’s spiritual journey to God as they head through the three realms of the afterlife known as Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Games have already been referencing this epic poem, with Dante’s Inferno loosely adapting the first canticle of it. But no game has adapted it all.

A kart racer is an odd way to do it, but there is a lot to work with. For one, there are plenty of locations and characters to use. For two, the linear narrative fits easily into an adventure mode. For three, the seven deadly sins have a strong focus within the narrative, and make for a great theming for the items of this kart racer. Physical representations of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride, each with two ways to use them.

Despite Dante being a living being on a spiritual journey through these three realms, it goes against the theming of the poem for him to abuse these sins without repercussion. Hence, two ways to use them. Balancing your use between strong-willed (attack) and weak-willed (defence) item use is essential to progress. At first, the game would be lenient with that balance. But the closer you get to God, and the end of the adventure, the more balanced you need to be.

Playing around with those sins outside of the adventure mode gives a mode known as The Deadly Sins. This mode, playable solo or in multiplayer, would increase the amount of item capsules on the track. But it also makes those item capsules single-use. Once a player drives through it and claims the item inside, that capsule will then not appear again. The reason for making them single-use is so they cannot be abused for the highest score.

On each track selection, an objective would also be given. Whether that be to be the most balanced, or be the strongest sinner with one of the deadly sins. This is all tracked behind the scenes, so the only time you’d ever see those balance meters is at the end of a race. The same goes for the adventure mode, but there all the sins are combined into just one meter to keep things simple. Hitting an opponent or defending against an item will further affect the balance than just using that item, so it is worthwhile being close to the pack.

For GRcade, then. The forum. Just like with the Hitman contract I crafted, a game focused on a community needs to build from that community. Locations in the game will be based around those areas used in forum games, or where meet-ups have happened. Characters will be based on the personas of the community. Items make reference to the memes and in-jokes of that community.

The tagline of GRcade is Games and Stuff. Stuff representing everything that isn’t video game based. With video games holding importance for the community, it makes sense to base the theming around them. A kart racer is a video game, after all, so it makes sense. Since the theming of video games and certain genres also fall into other media or real life activities, those of the community who don’t venture into the gaming side of the forum much won’t be left out.

Each character of the game would have three specialities. These are genres of games that will give that character their abilities. Each speciality has many abilities typically found within media of that genre, with three being selected for that speciality. While the abilities within each speciality can be personalised, the specialities themselves cannot. Each character would also have a unique ability that represents them as a person rather than specific likes.

Forum games are popular on GRcade, with many being played across its history. The most popular of those games being mafia. Otherwise known as werewolf. The social deduction genre of game has been growing popular within the video gaming sphere in recent times, with the likes of Among Us and Dread Hunger seeing a lot of players of them. But would a kart racer version of it work?

It would be interesting to try it. The way I see this working is an adapted version of capture the flag. Each player has three flags scattered around an arena they need to collect individually and bring back to a home base. By delivering a flag to the base, they gain an auto-lock ability. This also is true for the wolves, meaning they cannot make a kill before picking up one of their flags. While the town can only see their individual flags, the wolf team have a unified collection of flags, so even if they’re down to just one, they can still claim abilities and potentially win.

Since the town outweigh the wolf numbers, they could easily just fire shots at random and hope for the best. But that plan can easily go wrong. As such, careful use of abilities will win the day. The town will win when all town flags are back at the base or the wolf numbers have been reduced to zero. The wolves win by reducing the town numbers to zero.

With this article, I hope I have shown off that anything can be a kart racer. Each concept has tried different mechanics, experimented with modes, and tried to be anything but a conventional kart racer in small or large ways. Despite my guidelines saying I wanted enough to work with for three location themes and eight characters, that information I felt was secondary to the mechanics and modes that would be featured. Hence only including them when important to those mechanics or modes.

If you liked reading through these concepts and want to see me tackle more, I could probably do a part two next year. If there’s anything you want to see try designing a concept for, let me know and that part two might just include what you give me.

Images Taken From:
Visage | Steam
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery | IMDB
Tetris | Amazon Appstore
The Divine Comedy | Britannica
Games | GRcade