Development
Nintendo first announced on May 11, 2005 that they planned to release a Mario Kart game for the Nintendo DS, releasing some gameplay video footage at the same time. The company offered the game for the public to play for the first time at the 2005 Game Developers Conference, where the game's wireless feature was also showcased. Mario Kart DS was produced by Hideki Konno, who also worked on 2005's Nintendogs. The game runs at a consistent 60 frames per second and uses full 3D characters and environments.
Mario Kart DS is the first Mario Kart iteration to support online play. Konno remarked that although both Mario Kart DS and the Halo series of games feature online play, he noted that most of the people who use the feature in Halo games were "hardcore gamers". With Mario Kart DS, Konno wants "everyone to go online, and the technology and time is right for that to happen". Continuing with the tradition of introducing a new gameplay mechanic in each Mario Kart game, Mario Kart DS is the first in the series to support up to six players at the same time with game cartridges. New to the series, the game also includes a single-player Battle Mode, which does not require that there be at least two human participants. As the first Mario Kart game for the Nintendo DS, the developers tested several features that took advantage of the device's bottom touchscreen. They considered letting players place items anywhere on the track instead of just behind their kart. However, the developers found it too confusing because the game already had too many distractions, making it difficult to control where to place items while racing.
In Mario Kart DS, a kart is able to draft behind another kart to gain a speed boost momentarily, a feature that was also previously used in the 1996 video game Mario Kart 64. Mario Kart DS places a stronger focus on the feature and once again provides a visual cue when a kart is drafting. In an interview, Konno notes that they included tracks from previous Mario Kart games into Mario Kart DS so that players who played the original Super Mario Kart on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System would feel more familiar with the DS iteration of the series.
Read more about this topic: Mario Kart DS
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