Super Mario Kart IRL: How to build your Battle Mode kart
3.5.2018
One boring Saturday, Melly decides that she wants to play Mario Kart. In real life. It works quite well and is also fun for the skaters in Zurich.
If my mobile rings on a Saturday morning, it must be important. Or not.
"I'm bored," says Customer Service Representative Melanie Anna Lee at the other end of the line.
Good for her. I've been sleeping. That's probably over now. She's actually still asleep at this time of night. She can't really explain why she's already awake.
But she has an idea: in the office, she saw remote-controlled karts modelled on those from the video game series "Super Mario Kart". We could compete against each other in battle mode with the little karts.
After some swearing and I-just-stand-up-now noises, I agree. After all, Battle Mode was fun on the Super Nintendo and N64, so why should it be any less boring in real life? So I grab my camera, the Sony a7s ii, and tell Melanie to meet me at the office. At 10 o'clock. On a Saturday. She's crazy.
What is battle mode
"It's pure nostalgia," says Melanie, referring to her status as a child of the 1990s and the N64 generation. I think to myself "that's young" because my first experiences with Super Mario Kart were still on the Super Nintendo.
Battle Mode is like a duel on wheels. Back then, in 1992, you could compete against an opponent in the first Mario Kart. Three balloons were attached to the side of your kart and your opponent's. If you drove over question marks on the ground, you got a weapon. Green armour, red armour, banana skins and much more. If you hit your opponent, he has lost a balloon. With zero balloons: game over.
In short: Battle Mode is a classic in the game series and is a lot of fun on the console.
While I look in the fridge and realise that there's still nothing to eat, I wonder what Melanie thinks. I ask via text message. The German with the tattooed arm replies with a long list and a frighteningly precise blueprint of how we need to convert the karts. Too early for me. I give up my breakfast plans and head for the office.
Conversion for around 30 quid
If you already have karts, the conversion is pretty cheap. In the office, Melanie presents the plan and serves breakfast - homemade muesli - while I steal Manuel Wenk's GoPro. He'll hardly miss it at the weekend. Hopefully.
"It's super easy," she says.
You need:
- Karts
- Tape
- Balloons
- Wood sticks
- Pocket knife
You can already guess from here.
- Inflate the balloons
- Tick two balloons to the side
- One at the rear
- Cut the wooden stick to about 30 cm
- Tip the wooden stick
- Attach the wooden pole to the front of the kart at an angle
It is important that the wooden stick - which we quickly christened the "battle lance" during construction - is not mounted straight on the kart, as the balloons are attached to the kart higher than the lance would go. But it's not an exact science.
Of course, we can't race around the office. Well, we could, but anyone who knows the battle mode stages from the games knows that space is needed. A wide, open area with vertical obstacles. The open area is important for the remote-controlled karts because they have a fairly wide turning circle. The karts can drift, but this requires a smooth surface. The drift is also somewhat difficult to master.
The idea: the skate park near Zurich's Saalsporthalle
Wear high heels
An hour later, filming is in full swing. It was easy to find volunteer pilots among the skaters. Because Mario Kart is cult, battle mode is fun and if we're occupying a skate bowl anyway, then it's time to join in.
Melanie has taken over the GoPro and is running back and forth on the pitch. Just as she's about to join me on a rise to take a breather, disaster strikes.
Donkey Kong approaches from behind and hits Melanie in the leg. She didn't see the kart, I only saw it out of the corner of my eye. Her face contorts in an expression of pain and the question "What was that?" can be read from her face. Then, within a second, she realises that I have sunk the battle lance on Donkey Kong's kart into her leg. Resignation, anger and an expression of "Yeah, right, sure".
"Always wear high heels when you're doing battle mode," she says after pulling the lance out of her leg. The sharpened wooden stick doesn't come out of the skin on its own, it has drilled so deeply into it. Even days later, her foot still hurts because Donkey Kong caught her directly on the tendon.
Inflate the balloons well
The battle at the Saalsporthalle continues. Two boys and their father have become the main pilots. Skaters take turns at the wheel of Bowser. Every now and then we have to gather the karts in the centre so that a skater can perform a trick in the bowl, but everyone is having fun.
Only the February cold is a problem. The balloons go limp so quickly and are therefore hard to burst.
"A fondue fork would probably make a better fighting lance," says a skater.
"No! It definitely wouldn't," replies Melanie, thinking about her bleeding ankle. As it turns out, there are two holes near her ankle. One deep, the other not.
I think the skater is probably right, but I'll keep that to myself. Melanie, I suspect, is not particularly fond of stinging things. Above all, I feel guilty because I thought to myself in the morning as I was lacing up my boots, "It's a good thing I have high boots. I'm sure I won't get stung."
Sorry, Melanie.
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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