You can combine Mario Kart Live and Lego Super Mario

Assuming everyone was fed up with spending every waking hour playing video games while socially distancing themselves at home, Nintendo released two IRL video game experiences last year that it turns out may be unofficially combined to create a even better Mario in real life experience.

Although a bit pricey ($ 100 for a car, plus the cost of a Nintendo Switch console for each vehicle), we found Mario Kart Live, which turns your house into a real Mario Kart track, to be almost as satisfying and enjoyable to play as the popular racing game, while Lego Super Mario was a great alternative for those who want the Mario experience but lack of hand-eye coordination to master a controller.

Both experiences rely on image recognition to bring their respective games to life, with Mario Kart Live using an on-board camera to recognize track markers like starting corners and gates while Lego Super Mario features a scanner. to read special bar codes printed on other characters and obstacles. Both were retro-designed to allow anyone to create their own track markers (using Lego bricks in this case) and barcodes (using a regular home printer), which allowed the people behind the Playfool YouTube Channel to create this mashup that works so well, you’d be tempted to believe that Nintendo planned it that way.

To allow the Lego Super Mario minifigure to ride with the RC Mario Kart, you will need to print and fold a custom paper saddle created by Playfool (the the model can be downloaded here) which has the figure attached to the rear of the vehicle so that the scanner below can read any barcodes it passes over. The trickier part might be adding a piece of duct tape so the saddle doesn’t come undone during a particularly thrilling ride.

You’ll also need to incorporate the special Lego Super Mario barcode elements into your Mario Kart Live race track, including the start and finish markers that activate the stopwatch on the Lego Mario minifigure, power-ups and even wicked to drive. But it’s as easy as downloading, printing and cutting a course element collection that Playfool has already gone to the trouble of creating and arranging them on your track.

Just keep in mind that the score and achievements that you can collect and unlock in Mario Kart Live and Lego Super Mario remain completely separate; The Lego Mario minifigure still cannot connect to your Nintendo Switch and influence your race scores, and vice versa. The hack doesn’t do much to improve the Mario Kart Live experience, but if you’re bored of manually guiding Lego Super Mario around a Lego version of the Mushroom Kingdom you built, this mashup should breathe. a little life in this toy.