That sense of strategy extends to everything from coins that players pick up to improve their baseline speed to the way they can position something as seemingly innocuous as speed boosts on the stage. Coins can also be banked to buy upgrades between races during a grand prix or thrown at opponents as projectile weapons while boosts can be used to send unprepared opponents rocketing off the track or placed backwards to work as a sort of reverse-bumper. Even the act of approaching boosts on the track is strategic, with players getting a bigger boost if they jump directly on the strip but run the risk of accidentally jumping over it as part of Playtonic’s emphasis on rewarding raw talent.
“I’m from the age of Super Mario Kart where skill reigns supreme,” Price observes. “The best player won every single time and you earned every victory. Party games are more inclusive and you can play with your kids, where it’s more about luck. We’re definitely aiming more towards a skill-based experience. We think that this is going to be seriously competitive online.”
At the same time, Playtonic knows how to bring in the unabashed fun to the experience rather than providing nothing but cutthroat competitive racing, with plenty of options to make the races even wackier. The game allows for eight-person local multiplayer along with online multiplayer modes available to players to make the party even bigger. This comes in addition to the game’s tournaments, story mode campaign, time trials, and challenges that make this one of the most feature-rich racing games to come along in recent memory.
“There’s all this customization in the game so you can change speed, physics, bounciness, collisions, events occurring, what the surfaces are on each race track,” notes Price. “You can make everyone play invisible or shrunk down. There is tons of stuff so you can make a fun karting hang-out game for your friends, when you do need a respite from being competitive.”
Playtonic Games is currently taking requests from fans to participate in the game’s second playtest through its Steam page as the team continues to finetune the experience ahead of its eventual release. With each successive playtest and alpha and beta session, the creators are paying close attention to see how fans are responding as they set out to develop the ultimate kart racing experience. After years of perceived stagnation from the genre, Playtonic is ready to leave its own mark on kart racers and take things to the next level.
“We’ve got almost 35 years of bubbled-up ideas and frustration pouring out,” Price remarks. “We have to keep showing what’s going to be the next great thing about the game and build the hype trajectory up. This is such a big passion project for everyone on the team.”
