by Doc – Owner, Founder, Fine, Youtube, You Win
The Youtube algorithm has been relentlessly chucking this one Youtuber’s videos onto my feed over and over, and it’s easy to see why. He’s so thoroughly modded Mario Kart: Double Dash!! that it’s a practically unrecognizable game. Double Dash has historically been one of the least-modded Mario Kart games, save for possibly Super Circuit, due in no small part to the difficulty of cracking it open and allowing for new content. There’s been a few custom tracks that overwrote existing ones, a few palette swaps, but historically not much in the way of actually new content to expand the game.
Enter Mario Kart Double Dash!! RTGP.
RTGP does what many other Mario Kart mods, such as the quintessential Mario Kart Wii CTGP, aim to do: they add other tracks and mechanics from other Mario Karts, and a healthy dose of custom content, into the game. I put a lot of hours into CTGP when it was first coming to the forefront, and enjoyed it quite a bit. RTGP is a somewhat similar idea. RTGP seems to be not just adding retro tracks to Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, but also adding new mechanics, such as extra layers to the drifting boosts, entirely new items, and trick mechanics. It’s the same approach as what many vibe coders have been doing with old Gamecube games, but instead of being a decompilation getting modded it’s an actual mod to the Gamecube game itself. While Portable Productions states in his bio that he’s a veteran modder, it’s hard to imagine that the speed at which he’s been producing content for weeks on end is due to anything but heavy AI assistance, so I’ll assume the heavy lifting is mostly done by AI. No judgement here, I’m fine with AI being used for mods so long as the mods are heavily bug-tested.
The underlying philosophy behind this mod seems to mostly be “what if we took primarily Gamecube and Wii-era content and plugged it into Mario Kart?” which is a fantastic modding philosophy, and its always a joy to see modders take on that challenge. It’s the same kind of question that we all asked as kids, and seeing it come to life is pretty awesome. Just look at that screenshot! You’ve got Swoopin’ Stu, the bubble enemy from Super Mario Sunshine, as a throwable track obstacle. You have the fuzzies from Yoshi’s Island too. Go give that Youtube channel a look, you’ll see many more great “borrowings” from other games in this mod.
It’s not all great, though. I will say that I feel this is a good demonstration of “less is more” and “stick to the intent of the devs” in AI-assisted modding. You’ll notice in the Youtube screenshot above that many new items have been introduced, including… Walter White and his pizza from Breaking Bad. Haha, I’m sure that’s funny, but… why? Mario Kart would have been a perfectly complete game without meth kingpins in it. It doesn’t help that Ted, that talking teddy bear from the Mark Wahlberg movie a few years ago, is his partner player (and both models look like generic vibe-coded, low-token garbage). They’re so out of place and out of tune with what makes Mario Kart feel like itself that I can’t imagine what would possess someone to put it into Double Dash. What’s the point of bringing B-grade adult genres into Mario Kart of all things?
If I’m being honest, I really wanted to play this mod and experience more of that Mario Kart: Double Dash!!-y goodness that I had as a kid, but seeing content like this just… kills the interest. It’s like having a few flies in a really good soup. For any AI modders out there adding content to their favorite games, don’t be like this guy. Have a filter for what are your good ideas and what are your bad ones, and understand the theme of the game you’re modding before you throw any old trashy idea into it.
