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Prerelease:Mario Kart DS

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This page details prerelease information and/or media for Mario Kart DS.

Hmmm...
To do:

Development Timeline

2003-2004

  • Unknown - Mario Kart DS begins development.

2004

  • May 11-14 - Mario Kart DS was revealed at E3 2004.

2005

  • Mar. 11-17 - Mario Kart DS was shown off at GDC 2005.
  • Apr 28 - The build date of the European Kiosk Demo.
  • May 18-20 - Mario Kart DS was shown off again at E3 2005.
  • May 30 - The build date of the American Kiosk Demo.
  • Nov-Dec - Mario Kart DS was released.

Early Development (circa. 2003-2004)

Mario Kart DS started development early on in the life span of the Nintendo DS, all while borrowing various assets from its predecessor; Mario Kart Double Dash to be used as placeholders. A lot of models, textures, sounds, et cetera from Double Dash were put into the data of the game, including some that would never be used such as various sounds, implying that they were imported in a rather quick fashion with little thought as to which ones. A practice commonly done with assets from previous games in a series for later games early on in development.

2004

June

E3 2004

Mario Kart DS was first revealed to the public during E3 2004, and had a 30 second trailer and some screenshots showing 8 CPUs driving around GCN Yoshi Circuit.
It is the earliest known build of the game, being little more than a tech demo at this stage.

GCN Yoshi Circuit

E3 Final
MKDS early YoshiCircuit E3.png MKDS final YoshiCircuit.png
  • The skybox was a 2D background. Later builds would use 3D skyboxes.
  • The billboards were different and there were less of them.
  • The item boxes were placed differently.
  • Some of the fencing was missing, one example can be seen in the screenshot above.
  • There were palm trees placed all around the course, reusing a pre-render of the one from Peach Beach.
  • The bottom part of the wall texture in the tunnel has a dull pink color (like MKDD) as opposed to orange in the final.
  • The blue wall at the beginning was instead a stone wall.
  • The camera view is facing up in the demo.

Characters & karts

  • The character models at this point were reused low-poly models taken from Mario Kart: Double Dash!!.
  • The CPUs are shown using an early version of the Standard Kart, which looks a lot like the Toad Kart from Double Dash.

HUD

  • The HUD in this build features a speedometer based off the one from Double Dash.
  • The item roulette was positioned at the top-middle of the top screen.
  • The position tracker can be seen on the bottom left of the screen like in the final build.
  • The position tracker on the bottom screen is different, with player names colored orange.
  • The player character is highlighted with yellow compared to the shade of green used in the final.

Screenshots

More screenshots were shown on October 7 and November 20 of 2004. The kart and driver models were much closer to the final in this build. The HUD position is closer to the final but still had graphical differences. The speedometer is still present, now with a different design.

Mario's B Dasher used the same sort of tires as the standard kart and the karts use early emblems. Also note that Yoshi is using the pink Egg 1.

Figure-8 Circuit

  • Touch Screen map is less detailed.
  • Minimap is more pixelated compared to the Kiosk Demo's.
  • There're less trees around the track and their placement is different.
  • The adverts are different, and are straight from GCN Luigi Circuit. The long line of LUIGI TIRES adverts were changed to SUPER MARIO, SHOOT, DANGEROUS and PEACH GRAND PRIX.
  • Red-white decorations behind the audience instead of SUPER MARIO and KOOPA SPORT adverts.
  • The road texture is darker. It has the same coloring and dithering as test_circle's texture.
  • The blue-white sides are brighter.
  • Yellow SHOOT billboards (?) instead of GET 1ST on the second garage (after the audience).
  • The tunnel wall's textures are slightly darker.
  • The starting line's texture is slightly darker; has similar colors to test_circle's texture.
  • The tires on top of the garage at the beginning were removed.
  • The replay cameras are different (?).
  • The background has slightly different cloud formation. The early background ended up being used in Shroom Ridge and Peach Gardens, however.
Early Final
MKDS ShroomRidge Background.png MKDS Figure8 Background.png

Luigi's Mansion

Grass texture ripped from the GC game, showing off the part of the texture used in this early MKDS build.
  • Touch Screen map is less detailed.
  • Minimap also covers the mud, which is not the case in Kiosk Demo nor the final.
  • The background is brighter.
  • The MARIOKART banner at the beginning is missing.
  • Trees use a different texture; which is a pre-render of those from the GameCube game of the same name.
  • Tombstones and trees are placed differently.
  • The road, grass and tombstones' textures are darker. The latter two come straight from the GameCube game of the same name, only the grass texture seems to have been contrasted a bit.
  • Tables on the basement aren't present.
  • Itemboxes on the basement were moved to the end of the tunnel, and reduced from five to four.
  • Paintings are placed differently.
  • Chandeliers' texture has a handle on where they connect to the ceiling, a little detail that doesn't appear in the Kiosk Demo and final's model.
  • Replay cameras are different (?).

SNES Mario Circuit 1

Texture from MKDD's Mario Circuit where the block texture is re-used (right under the mushroom texture in top-most)
  • Touch Screen map seems to be larger in dimensions than both Kiosk Demo and final's, according to how detailed (pixel-wise) it is.
  • Minimap is slightly smaller, has more obliqued outline and lacks the START text. The starting line there is also 4x2 instead of 5x2.
  • Multicolor blocks are organized as 2x2 for each color instead of 4x1 as in the SNES original. The texture is also different; being reused from a part of a texture from Mario Circuit in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, albeit recolored.
  • The background is less detailed.
  • Clouds are placed differently.
  • Pipes have a black shadow instead of gray. This version of the model still exists in the Kiosk Demo, but not in the final.
  • The road texture has different dithering compared to Kiosk Demo's. This build's road texture comes straight from GCN Yoshi Circuit and old_mario_gc (more likely the latter due to the difference in colors).
  • Sand texture is darker.
  • Replay cameras are different (?).

Footage of this build can be seen here (skip to 0:15 for Mario Kart DS):

The item roulette at the top left corner showed the unused Bowser Shell and Fake Item Box icons, while Blue Shell and Boo did not appear. The Fake Item Box did not appear in the next build (GDC 2005). The Mushroom boost also lacked the particle effect, and camera zoom-out.

Another short footage with Figure-8 Circuit can be seen here (0:31 to 0:33):

Early Final
MKDS early LuigisMansion.png MKDS final LuigisMansion.png
Early Final
MKDS early LuigisMansion floor.png MKDS final LuigisMansion floor.png

2005

March

GDC 2005

At GDC 2005, Mario Kart DS was shown again with a demonstration of the multiplayer mode. This build used the Mario Kart 64 title screen music as a placeholder, and used a temporary image for the title screen. Lakitu appears at the start of the race using countdown lights, which doesn't happen in the final;, but its assets still exist in the Kiosk Demo. The voice clips for the characters are mostly reused from Mario Kart: Double Dash!!.

Drifting also worked differently; You get orange sparkles as soon as you start drifting and the color doesn't change when pressing left and right to perform a mini turbo. The minimap was zoomed in and there was no fixed close up view of the driver when driving to the goal.

Special items (triple shells, etc.) played the normal item get sound instead of the special one.

Figure-8 Circuit
  • Touch Screen map is less detailed and is of an earlier version with the tires on the garage at the beginning, which got removed from this version's model (which is finalized at this stage).
  • Minimap is more pixelated compared to the Kiosk Demo's.
  • There're less trees around the track; there were four trees instead of six in the first curve, two trees instead of five in the second curve and five trees instead of ten outside it (according to the bottom screen map). Their placement is also different.
  • The music is slightly different from that of Kiosk Demo's.
  • The fourth and fifth replay cameras are different.
  • Audience cheers are missing.
  • The background isn't animated and has slightly different cloud formation. The early background ended up being used in Shroom Ridge and Peach Gardens, however.
Early Final
MKDS ShroomRidge Background.png MKDS Figure8 Background.png

Footage of the demonstration:

Footage that was recorded at the same moment that includes the full race.

GDC/Earliest Proto Final
MarioKartDS earlyTitlescreen GDC.png MKDSKiosk Title.png Mario Kart DS-title.png

May

E3 2005

Mario Kart DS was shown again at E3 2005 with more details and a longer trailer. This version is very close to the kiosk demo that was in stores before it released; only visible differences are a smaller item roulette in the HUD and Donkey Kong being named Donkey instead of DK . The E3 demo was multiplayer only. This is also closer to the final than the build from 2004.

Screenshots

Compared to the E3 2005 trailer video, the screenshots appear to be of a slightly earlier build (probably a week or two before), due to the touch screen maps using different graphics, whereas they use the same graphics as the Kiosk Demo version in the trailer video. The minimaps are also unchanged from the late 2004 build mentioned above. Figure-8 Circuit also still uses its early background mentioned above.

The touch screen map animations (used in Yoshi Falls and Cheep Cheep Beach) also aren't seem to be implemented.

Video

The trailer video depicts touch screen maps from the Kiosk Demo version with animations implemented, however the minimaps are still unchanged. Figure-8 Circuit also still uses its early background.

The E3 2005 trailer:

August?

Gamescom 2005

At 7:15 footage of another early build can be seen at the german Gamescom 2005 event. It appears to be the same build as the European kiosk demo.

November?

Manual

Hmmm...
To do:
Which manual versions (physical/digital, region)

Early Cup Icons

Manual NintendoDS MarioKa-132.png Manual NintendoDS MarioKa-134.png

At page 35, the cup icons have different renders than the ones from the final game.

Replay Option in Mission Mode

Page 22 of the physical, European manual mentions a replay option after completing a mission, which is nowhere be found in the final version. However, the Kiosk Demo has a replay option in mission mode.