Mario Kart XXL (found Game Boy Advance tech demo; 2004)

Title screen.

Status: Found

Date found: 15 Oct 2022

Mario Kart XXL is a Game Boy Advance tech demo created by Denaris Entertainment Software for Nintendo in 2004. The purpose was to demonstrate the GBA's ability to render and scale/rotate two different background layers.^[1]

Content

There is only one course, similar to Peach Circuit, with the second background layer resembling Shy Guy Beach, and only one playable character, which is Mario. The race consists of three laps and can be cancelled at any time by pressing the Select button. Unusual for Game Boy Advance games, the course is rendered in true 3D. The camera can zoom in and out on Mario using the L and R buttons, also rendered in full 3D.

The Game Pak is shaped like that of a Game Boy game rather than a standard Game Boy Advance game.

The music in the prototype is from Moorhuhn Kart (aka. Crazy Chicken Kart) on PC and PlayStation.

Availability

YouTuber "Steven Seventyeight" or "steem69" found the cartridge and posted a gameplay video of it using GameCube's Game Boy Advance Player. He has stated that he didn't plan on dumping the tech demo's ROM. Later, in 2015, Steven sold the cartridge for $600 to an unknown buyer.

On December 15th, 2020, the game preservation group Forest of Illusion made a tweet asking for help figuring out who the buyer was.^[2] Almost 2 years later on September 16th, 2022, Forest of Illusion, replied to their original tweet, saying "More details soon", hinting that they may have tracked down the original buyer.^[3]

On October 14th, 2022, Hard4Games posted a tweet featuring screenshots of the demo being played through an emulator.^[4] On October 15th, 2022, Forest of Illusion finally posted the ROM to their website, which made the demo accessible to everyone.