page_title: Atari Karts
section_title: Development and release
hierarchical_section_title: Atari Karts / Development and release
caption_attribution_description: The Atari Jaguar console shown with the standard controller. The Jaguar was a fifth generation gaming console released by Atari Corp. in 1993. Using a 3 chip, 5 processor design, it had a powerful (for its time) architecture, but games generally didn't fully utilize it due to the difficult nature of programming for it. It had a small game library with titles mostly published by Atari, a company that was had constant difficulties getting back in the dedicated gaming market after the Atari 2600. It was Atari's Corps last gaming console, as it took itself out of the gaming market after the huge failure of the console.
context_page_description: Atari Karts is a kart racing video game developed by Miracle Designs and published by Atari Corporation exclusively for the Atari Jaguar first in North America on December 15, 1995 and later in Europe on December 22 of the same year. It is one of the first titles developed by Miracle Designs and its gameplay is similar to the Mario Kart series, where items are placed at predetermined points in the tracks.
  In Atari Karts, players take control of one of the seven characters available including Bentley Bear, the protagonist of the 1983 arcade game Crystal Castles, with each one having different capabilities. In single player mode, players race against computer-controlled characters in multi-race cups over four levels of difficulty and during the races, speed boosting and other power-ups can be used to gain an advantage while in multi-player mode two players can simultaneously take part in the cups. It features numerous homages to the history of Atari and its games.
  Atari Karts received mixed reception when it was released.
context_section_description: According to ex-Atari Corporation vice-president in third-party development Bill Rehbock, programmers Filip Hautekeete and Peter Vermeulen at Miracle Designs received an Alpine development kit for the Atari Jaguar from Atari Corp. themselves and started working on with it. Both Filip and Peter created a demo showcasing an emulated interpretation of the Mode 7 graphics mode found in the Super Nintendo to test the capabilities of the Jaguar and sent it to Bill and ex-Atari employee J. Patton. Impressed with the results seen from the demo, Atari decided to create a game by combining both F-Zero and Super Mario Kart, with Bill suggesting the usage of Bentley Bear from Crystal Castles along with other characters from Atari, which did not make it into the final release and designing the game with a "cutesy" atmosphere for the family audience. This demo became the starting point for the development of Atari Karts.
  Atari Karts makes extensive use of the Mode 7 technique developed by Miracle Designs for the system, featuring elevated and lowered terrains when racing on the tracks. The soundtrack was composed in 1994 by Fabrice Gillet in ProTracker on an Amiga. Neither he nor the people who created the in-game artwork are listed in the game's credits at the end of the game, with the manual just referring to them as the "Miracle Designs Team". Atari Karts was developed in Belgium and was formally announced in early 1995 under the working title Kart. It was also previewed under a new working title; Super Karts, which lead to the confusion in a supplementary July 1995 issue by Edge magazine that Virgin Interactive's similarly named SuperKarts was being converted to the Jaguar. In both internal documents from Atari and a list of upcoming games for the system by VideoGames magazine, listed the title of the project under its final name minus the letter S and as a September 1995 title. Development on the game was completed on December 11, 1995, a few days before release. The game was showcased during the Fun 'n' Games Day event hosted by Atari.
caption: The Mode 7 demo created by Miracle Design for the Atari Jaguar became the basis of development for Atari Karts.
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