Dataminer Reveals Spiny Was Originally Meant to Be Playable in Mario Kart World

A dataminer has uncovered something peculiar in the code of Mario Kart World. Spiny, a tiny little turtle-looking fella with a spiky shell, was meant to be a driver in the game.

This information was discovered by Bluesky user Benial, with Spiny’s internal name ‘Togezo’ listed alongside a selection of other characters. As of writing there’s been no model, animation, nor idea of how exactly Spiny would imagine such a feat discovered.

Spiny, for those who don’t know, is a menacing creature not particularly known for its driving prowess. ‘Spiny’ has long been the name for the enemies initially introduced in Super Mario Bros., and has been a staple of the Mario universe since 1985. With that angry look on his face and the spikes lining his shell, one would worry whether it’s a good idea to let them behind the wheel at all.

Hey, why not? Boo is a playable driver, and the veteran ghost character also doesn’t seem like the driving type. So Spiny may have made a great addition to the roster. Why is it my business whether Spiny has trouble driving a car or not; No one elected me to police the Rainbow Roads.

Mario Kart World is a great racing game that seems to have done well, even without Spiny behind the wheel. The game, as a Nintendo Switch 2 launch title, was present during the console’s strong sales last year. The game has since received a selection of updates since its release, including a battle mode and team races to its tour mode.

Mentioned in this article

Mario Kart World

One of BioWare’s famous doctor-founders, Greg Zeschuk, has finally spoken about the studio’s closure last week, saying it’s “kind of sad” and that EA’s leveraged buyout by a Saudi-involved consortium “was the final nail in the coffin”.

Speaking to 80 Level, Zeschuk – who founded BioWare in 1995 with fellow medical students Ray Muzyka and Augustine Yip – said he was fishing when news of the studio’s closure broke. “I got like 10 texts,” Zeschuk said. “I came off the river and got to my little room and opened my phone, and it’s like, ‘I’m so sorry to hear about BioWare.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh shit.'”

By the time he flew home later, he’d already apparently digested the news and missed most of the discourse around it. “I wasn’t there to share in the moment,” he said, “which in some ways was nice because I was able to kind of just take my time with it.

“I’ve kind of gone through all the emotions long, long ago” -Greg Zeschuk

“I’m not saying it doesn’t hurt and doesn’t suck,” he added. “And I think it’s kind of sad. It’s actually, in some ways, saddest for the city of Edmonton, where we’re from, because we were kind of this beacon of hope and excitement and possibility. We showed you could do something really special in a place that was not known for doing things like that.”

Zeschuk and Muzyka retired from BioWare in 2012, the year Mass Effect 3 was released, so they’ve been away from the business for a considerable amount of time. They’ve moved on. “I’ve kind of gone through all the emotions long, long ago,” Zeschuk explained.

BioWare did change thereafter, he seemed to accept, but as a result of a gradual change propelled naturally by people leaving and other people coming in. “I’m not going to have so much hubris to say Ray and I were the lynchpin in the chain, our departure ruined everything,” he said. “It wasn’t that at all. It’s a slow and insidious kind of thing and again, it’s the people. The people are the key.”

When he heard the private acquisition of EA had gone through, that’s when he feared things might be headed to a bad place. “I think it was the final nail in the coffin,” he said. “I think that was the crux of it in a sense. BioWare makes these kinds of unusual games that take a long time and they’re complicated and so it’s easier just to pump out sports games every year, and that’s a better business model in some ways.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Zeschuk talked a little about the origins of BioWare selling to EA in 2008 – “We had options actually” – and about personally sliding away from story-driven games towards more action-centred games like the Nioh series and Elden Ring.

Since 2017, Zeschuk has been building a beer-brewing company called Blind Enthusiasm, which apparently now employs a dozen people and ships tens of thousands of bottles of beer a year. This interview is the only one Zeschuk has given. Muzyka has so far declined to be interviewed. The third BioWare co-founder, Augustine Yip, left the company long ago, back in 1998.

Mentioned in this article

See 13 more

Baldur’s Gate

Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn

Dragon Age II

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Dragon Age: Origins

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 3

Mass Effect: Andromeda

Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic

Star Wars: The Old Republic

+ 21 more ›