Mario Kart Live And Lego Mario Combine To Make A Toyetic Mega-Game

Nintendo mascot Mario appeared in two major toy lines last year, but one enterprising tinkerer found a way to combine them. The AR racer Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit and the Lego Mario line of building toys weren't meant to work together, but a clever Redditor found a way.

Reddit user studioplayfool strapped the Lego Mario toy to the back of a Mario Kart Live kart. Since the Lego Mario toy functions by scanning barcodes on the other Lego toys, the mash-up used those same barcodes in order to track obstacles for the kart. The result is a Mario Kart Live track that works with the Lego Mario timer and awards coins for taking out goombas and question blocks along the way.

It's very impressive, but on top of the flashy video, studioplayfool provided a link to open-source files, including instructions and bar codes, for creating your own Mario Kart Live / Lego Mario mash-ups. It even includes a papercraft "saddle" for Lego Mario to ride around in.

GameSpot's Mario Kart Live review found the game to be a fun and engaging way to create your own tracks, though a little too exploitable to give yourself easy wins.

"That said, cheating the system is really only cheating yourself out of the experience," the review concluded. "There's fun to be had in Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, but you have to invest in it. The more work you put into making your go-kart track craftwork unique, the more enjoyment you'll get out of racing, with or without some frustration and repetition. Mario Kart Live isn't going to have the long-term appeal of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but with some imagination and ingenuity, you can make it something special."