Emora Kart

We're all used to seeing kart racers copying the tried and trusted Mario Kart formula these days, but here's a quick blast to the past that proves game developers were busy mimicking Nintendo's style right from the off.

Emora Kart is a mouse-controlled Super Mario Kart clone that was developed exclusively for Macintosh in 1994, just a couple of years after Nintendo's own effort hit the market. In a blog post, Matt Sephton has shared details on its gameplay after stumbling across the game on a CD-ROM supplied with the January 2002 issue of Japanese magazine, MacLife.

Sephton explains that the game kicks off with a tutorial-style qualifying course, before opening up four more courses once you earn a first-place position. These new tracks are more challenging, but finishing first on all of these unlocks a final special course.

Your racer (the titular, dinosaur-like creature, Emora) automatically accelerates, leaving the steering to you. You control Emora's kart by trailing the mouse pointer in front of the kart, which Sephton says "gives the feeling that you’re almost pulling them around the track."

Emora Kart
Image: via Matt Sephton

Just like Mario Kart, Emora Kart has coins littered around the track and even the circuit shape above feels reminiscent of Super Mario Kart's iconic Donut Plains, don't you think?

If you're interested in checking this out for yourself, you can play the game in your browser here (expect it to run slowly, though), or download it here to play on real Macintosh hardware.

[source blog.gingerbeardman.com]