Mario Kartis a classic, family-friendly kart racer game recognized and well-loved for its iconic characters and gameplay. As one of thebest kart racersof all time, it has likely inspired similar racing titles over the years, but this also extends to where its influence might be unexpected, like in the fantasy-themed mini-golf gameDungeon Golf.
In a recent interview with Game Rant, Ant Workshop’s Marketing Manager Bianca Fogah and Marketing Director Tony Gowland spoke Golfand what inspired its focus on unique characters and fun gameplay, including the beloved kart racerMario Kart 8. It might seem more surprising thatMario Kartinspired a mini-golf game in possibly more ways than Nintendo’s golf games likeMario Golf: Super Rush. However, Gowland did say they were shooting for aMario Kartvibe and that shines through in its game design.
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How Mario Kart Influenced Dungeon Golf’s Character Abilities And Gameplay
Some of thebest golf gamesfeature mini-golf or non-standard golf games.Mario Golf,Mario Golf: Advance Tour,and evenWorms Crazy Golfput a spin on many typical golf games that can often focus more on realistic golfing techniques. ForDungeon Golf, Gowland explained their focus is on creating widely-recognized and humorous archetype or trope-like characters from the fantasy genre that many fans of high fantasy will immediately recognize and have their favorites, just like characters in theMariofranchise are instantly recognizable.
We wanted to keep it very kind of broad, and we wanted each of the playable characters, so you’d instantly recognize them. There’s the barbarian, there’s the wizard, there’s the skeleton, there’s the rogue character, and stuff like that. We wanted to keep it almost generic because it’s the golfing element of it is what gives it its twist, but you want to keep really understandable among the trope take on things.
One ofDungeon Golf’s characters that maybe best exemplifyMario Kart’s design influences isDungeon Golf’s time-traveling Wily Wizard, who is acharacter with teleportation abilities. Although mainly based on fantasy archetypes,Dungeon Golfputs a twist on its character design, abilities, and backstories, with each golfer possessing a “normal ability and a super ability.” For example, Gowland explained how the Wily Wizard’s teleportation ability can change the course of a match.
His special ability swaps the positions of every player. If one player has got quite close to the hole and the wizard fires off his specialty, you may end up swapping places and really screwing over the other players. It’s almost likeMario Kart. We wanted to get quite aMario Kartvibe to it.
This teleportation ability’s impact on the gameplay may cause “knockabout” chaos onDungeon Golf’s courses and is somewhat comparable to abilities likeMario Kart’s power-upslike the star, which gives players to improve their track position with a brief spell of speed and invulnerability, potentially sweeping into first place.
Mario KartAnd Accessibility In Dungeon Golf’s Family-Friendly Party Gameplay
Gowland further explained howMario Kart 8also influencedDungeon Golffrom an accessibility point of view, helping the game to be inclusive of all kinds of age groups and abilities as afun family-friendly party game. All of this is important in any party game, but the approach here is definitely noteworthy.
“…one of the awesome things aboutMario Kart 8is you can switch on modes where it’s like a three-year-old can sit with a controller and hold down a button. They won’t win, but they’ll feel like they’re playing the game along with the rest of the family. It’s really, really nice to be able to do that, so it is like a lot of that family inclusivity thing that we’ve been aiming for.”
Dungeon Golfseemingly focuses on fun, goofiness, and inclusivity over othersports games that focus on realism. During early access, it will be fascinating to see more of its character abilities in action, how they impact the mini-golf matches, and see if it hits thoseMario Kartvibes through competitive PVP gameplay and single-player tournaments.
