In the first developer interview for Mario Kart World, it was revealed that characters eating food was an idea that came up early in the development of the game.

However, during one point of development, the idea of eating food was almost removed due to resource constraints. Two years after the idea came up, the idea was revisited and merged with another idea of unlocking outfits through eating food at various Yoshi’s locations around the world of Mario Kart. Nintendo hopes that this will incentivize players to try out different characters to unlock every costume.

Oh, even though it’s Mario Kart, there are some that show the characters eating food instead of driving a kart.

Yabuki: The idea of showing characters eating a variety of foods came up early on in development.

Jikumaru: If you’re traveling through a vast and diverse world, you can’t leave out the local food that’s unique to each place. But actually, we did consider removing the food feature at one point. Incorporating it into the game means adding not only the food itself, but also the stores that sell it and the staff that work there, which would mean even more content.

But you came back to this idea later?

Jikumaru: Yes, while development was ongoing, about two years after the idea came up, I thought to myself, “You know what? I need food!” (Laughs) Unable to let it go, I asked the programmers to implement a hamburger model I’d created and make it so that the characters could eat it. It was well received within the team, and the designer started to churn out different kinds of food. Before we knew it, the number of variations had exploded.

Ishikawa: The designer in charge was really pumped up about creating them. We’ve incorporated lots of Mario-inspired twists and tidbits to create a wide variety of designs. I also had a lot of fun looking at those designs.

Sato: Food is sold at “Yoshi’s,” fictional drive-thru restaurants located all over the game’s world. Yoshi and his friends make food inspired by each area.

So, “Yoshi’s” is a chain of drive-thrus that’s expanded across the world.

Ishikawa: Exactly. For example, a Yoshi’s drive-thru located in a volcanic region would look like a volcano and sell piping-hot soup inspired by Bowser. (Laughs)

Jikumaru: As we were making these various concepts, Yabuki-san comes marching up to me and says, “When Mario eats something, he transforms.” He sounded pretty serious about it. (Laughs)

Yabuki: Originally, we were creating the various outfits separately from the foods. So, we wondered if we could combine those two elements.

Oh, so the foods and outfits were unrelated at first?

Yabuki: Yes, they were two completely separate elements. We discussed the idea of using coins to buy clothes from clothing stores, but that would have meant stopping at stores to shop, which would have disrupted the flow, given that this is a world where you can keep driving. That’s when the idea of food came up. We thought, why don’t we have a drive-thru system where characters eat while driving, and eating makes them change outfits or transform into a different character? Though, it’s utterly ridiculous. (Laughs)

It was also confirmed by Takashi Tezuka, one of the minds behind the 2D Mario games, that Mario does, in fact, eat mushrooms.

Yabuki: Then, the question came up: “Does Mario, in fact, eat mushrooms?” (Laughs)

Jikumaru: So in the midst of development, we went up to Tezuka-san (8) and asked him to confirm, “Is Mario actually eating those mushrooms?”

Yabuki: That’s right. And Tezuka-san answers, “Yeah, he is.”

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