Play Mario Kart in Your Browser With This CSS Clone (Updated)
Suck lightning. Fortunately, the painstaking work of software engineer Stephen Cook does not include any of these (cheating) tricks. In its simplified version of Mario Kart that you can play right in your browser , you just have to worry about easy driving, not item handling.
The impressive part of Cook’s spoof for Nintendo is that it is built almost entirely in CSS , the style sheet language primarily used to control the appearance of the websites you visit. CSS has evolved over the years and can now be used by cunning creators to create everything from Mona Lisa to game chess .
Despite these advances, Cook’s version of the classic game is still pretty straightforward. You can only guide your kart left and right (using the “A” and “D” keys respectively), and the map is really just one straight road without any obstacles. Sorry Rainbow Road fans, no crazy maneuvers for you.
If the game crashes, you are not alone. I had some initial problems, although it eventually worked, but some of my colleagues were still unable to get through the start screen. I reached out to Cook, who noticed that his program was not designed to work in Safari, which might be a problem for some people. However, he also admitted that there might be some server issues, but was unable to confirm while away from his computer on vacation.
Although the game uses Mario by default, you can switch characters if you prefer to play as Bowser. The message in the blog explains the process, Cooke explains that he chose a recurring Mario enemy, “because I respect the way he is not afraid to fail repeatedly in the problem, despite the lack of a clear end goal.”
It’s like when your Mario Kart mates are struck by lightning as you are about to take a critical jump, knocking you from first to last and making you wonder why you keep playing the game and / or maintain your friendship.
Updated on May 8 at 7:31 pm ET: Updated to reflect developer comments about possible server issues with the program.