LogInIt had an escape plan in case it didn't work out.
Nintendo
Mario Kart: Double Dash brought a new mechanic to the franchise, allowing players to control not one but two characters riding the same car. However, Nintendo hasn't always been sure about it, as revealed in a 2003 interview recently translated by Shmuplations.
Apparently, the company was also working on a traditional one-driver game in case the new gimmick didn't work. Nintendo wanted to freshen up the franchise with new features but also not destroy "what makes Mario Kart unique. That was a monumental challenge."
“Yeah, so you’ve got all these expectations,” producer Tadashi Sugiyama told Nintendo Dream, “and you’ve got to add something new. The ‘two drivers’ concept, therefore, was something we came to at the end of a very long process of brainstorming. We were a little worried about it though, so at first we were developing a single-driver version too, in parallel with the two-driver development.”
That other game was the team's “emergency escape hatch” that would replace the two-rider concept if it didn't work. “But in the end, owing I think to the majority of our staff who really wanted to do something new, we consolidated the development into just the two-driver concept,” Sugiyama said.
One more interesting detail is that Double Dash was supposed to have sidecars, but characters sitting side-by-side was a bit too clunky.
“Normally when one thinks of two people in a car, you think of a driver and passenger seat side-by-side,” Sugiyama explained. “But for Mario Kart, that would end up making the karts too wide. Can you imagine 8 massive karts lined up like that?”
So the team decided to sit the second person behind the first, which revealed another issue: you couldn't see the driver in front of you. So, Nintendo allowed players to swap between drivers immediately.
It all turned out well, thankfully, and the franchise got its unusual mechanic and new fans. Find out more about the development in the interview and join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.