Mario Kart: Ancient Circuit/Beta elements

As with most any video game, Mario Kart: Ancient Circuit has beta elements, which are listed below.
==Early ideas==
The Buzzy Beetle Shell is the first item Alex ever designed for a Mario Kart game. Its origins can be traced as far back as 2000, for an apparent Game Boy Color Mario Kart game. Inspired by Mario Golf and Tennis as well as Pokémon Stadium 1, this was supposed to be an RPG-style Mario Kart game that you could connect with Mario Kart 64 via Transfer Pak. It was never developed.
Development for this game can be traced as far back as the summer of 2005, when Alex encountered a (now presumed defunct) site called "Super Mario Bros. Headquarters". One feature of the site was a section called "Game Ideas", and the most well-developed idea he found on the site was for a game called "Mario Kart: The Race is On!"
As with Ancient Circuit, this game was predicated on the idea of trying to fix a broken ancient relic rather than race for trophies; however, this game contained a number of differences:
*The game was clearly intended to be a successor to Double Dash!!, as it was on the same system and indirectly mentioned Shine Thief and Bob-Omb Blast, and one of the courses was "Inside a GameCube". In practice, however, the game functioned more like Super Circuit, as stats appeared to be tied to characters and there did not appear to be any selectable Karts, limiting characters to the Pipe Frame. The game had a handling stat for characters (dubbed "Turning"), which was unusual for the time, and while all stats except for weight were out of 5, characters could have half points in a stat.
**Most notably, Bowser Jr. was to be a heavyweight, "not because of him, but because of his Kart...he stole his dad's design and made it blue!"
**The Koopalings were to be playable characters, over a decade before their actual debut
**Boshi was a playable character.
*There were six cups, with six tracks in each.
*An apparent unlockable track was "Metal Mountain"; nothing is known about it.
*Remakes of the Mario Kart 64 tracks could be unlocked; with only 16 tracks in four cups of four against the game's 36, how exactly they would be handled is unknown
The final product of Ancient Circuit contains a few references to its apparent inspiration:
*More than four cups in each GP, and more than four tracks in each cup.
*Spiny Eggs, whose function in the original was served by "tacks"; whether or not they functioned like the Tacks seen in the Arcade GP games is unclear.
*Goombas being a playable character, and having the worst stats.
*The "final character" being a complete unknown to the Nintendo universe that has perfect stats and is OP, in this case, Yuki and the Black Diamond. In the original game, a character called "White Ninja", a middleweight with 5's in all stats, filled the role. Little was known about this character other than the fact that he had an apparent rivalry with a "Black Ninja".
*Bob-Omb Crossing
*Petey Piranha's Greenhouse (named "Petey's Pirhana[sic] Plant Powerhouse" in the original)
*Interstate 95 as a Battle course (the original game had a course called "Detroit", where players drove on Interstate 94 with "mile-wide potholes" and "drive-bys" (shootings???) as obstacles); this is presumed to be one reason behind Ancient Circuit' E-10+ ESRB rating.
With St. Clair Publications in general and The World of Nintendo specifically undergoing overhauls at the time, Alex was apparently so impressed with this game that he ordered it to be developed right then and there, for either the GameCube or DS. However, with Mario Kart DS about to be released and the "Nintendo Revolution" still pending, the decision was ultimately made to wait.
In 2006, amid the hype surrounding "Super Smash Bros. Game Show Mêlée" (a series which would ultimately become Alex's Game Shows), Alex announced a "Mario Kart: World Tour" that would essentially amount to "Smash Bros. Mêlée meets Mario Kart". The roster was essentially the same as SSBM, but with Mario universe characters replacing the clones, and there was apparently going to be an adventure mode as well as a "training mode"; exactly what this entailed wasn't clear.
The Drag Race mode seen in the final, as well as Endurance races in Vs. Mode, are a leftover of this idea. The fact that Link is a playable character in this game could also be a reference; however, it is most likely a coincidence, as Alex's initial design for the roster demanded, for the unlockable characters, "six characters from other Nintendo franchises, half of which have appeared in a Mario Kart game before", and Link has appeared in Mario Kart 8/Deluxe.
With the company's resources "spread thin" among development of video games in its own universes, SSBGSM, all the big plot changes that were happening in The World of Nintendo at the time, and the fact that Super Smash Stadium, previously a joint project between SP and another company called "Suburban Sprawl Entertainment", had its ownership fully transferred to SP in 2007, "World Tour" was put on the back burner and was ultimately scrapped after about two years. The last known mention of World Tour was in March of 2008.
Twelve O' Clock Knob Road is the first track Alex ever designed for a Mario Kart game, dating all the way back to 2007. However, attempting to make a track then proved impossible since neither Alex nor anyone in Nintendo's fandom that he was aware of could wrap their heads around the concept of sectioned tracks, and making a circle proved to be difficult (in real life, one must make a complicated route involving U.S. 221 and 11 plus VA 419 in Roanoke County and Salem to make a circular track involving the road). Since Alex did not want to make the track one lap (as is seen in a few Mario Kart Wii hacks), the track was scrapped.
Coincidentally, development of Ancient Circuit began in 2016, after Alex played Mario Kart 8 and finally was able to wrap his head around the concept of sectioned tracks thanks to Mt. Wario, leading to him dusting off his old concept of Twelve O' Clock Knob Road.
==Scrapped features of the final game==
* Glydon was originally supposed to be known as the "Anywhere Glider", which would have made his function far more obvious.
* The Poison Mushroom was originally supposed to have a more distinct design, as it usually does in the Mario series. In the final game, the Poison Mushroom has its Smash Bros. appearance as the result of an accident made during a presentation that Alex decided to leave in after a positive response.
* The decision to call this game "Mario Kart: Ancient Circuit" was a near-last-minute decision; Alex held on to the "Mario Kart: World Tour" name throughout much of this game's development and even considered the original "The Race is On!" name, "Ultra Circuit", and "Hyper Circuit".
* Kooper was supposed to use Kroger's name outright and look like a Kroger; however, not only was this criticized as blatant product placement, St. Clair Publications was unable to secure the rights. Hacking the game reveals a picture of the 2015 "all-blue" version of Kroger's 1961 logo, however.
** At one point, Food Lion was considered as a "sponsor" for the grocery store track. (Attempting to "Nintendo-ize" Food Lion has been something of a running gag for St. Clair Publications, as drafts for various World of Nintendo episodes make references to a "Food Goomba" that ultimately got edited out or replaced with "Fall-Mart" or "Break the Targets" in the aired versions. One game even mentions a "Winn-Sprixie".)
** At some points, Kooper was in consideration to be the Fire Flower Cup's sectioned track.
*There was supposed to be a story mode in this game, apparently intended to be similar to Smash Bros. Brawl's Subspace Emissary.
*The unlockable characters originally had far different unlocking conditions. For example, Goomba could be unlocked just by winning a GP cup, while Sonic could be unlocked by winning a GP cup with Mario, and Captain Falcon could be unlocked by going a full mile in Drag Race. This was ultimately scrapped because Villager, Pikachu, and Inkling required you to own their Switch games in order to unlock them, which was seen as unfair.
*Similarly, this game had a far different Kart roster, with as many as 57 vehicles and only 12 being unlockable, and some vehicles that are bikes or ATV's in the final being Karts. It was overhauled because there were too many Nitro Karts and not enough ATV's for Alex's liking. Some of the scrapped vehicles include the "Glove Dropper" (an ice hockey Zamboni-themed ATV), the GCN Parade Kart, and the Wii-U Biddybuggy. (The Parade Kart was ultimately brought back in the November 2020 DLC pack.)
*The Titanium Standard tires had a different name. The original name was lost to a computer crash and faulty backup, and Alex has since forgotten what it was.
*Far more DLC was planned for this game than has ultimately been released, including Meowth, two other St. Clair Publications characters (Linda and Kaitlin) with Karts referencing their series (a restored C3 Chevy Corvette for the former and an unnamed "1976 Harley-Davidson" for the latter), Team Rocket's Meowth balloon as an ATV, and as many as nine whole cups. While all were scrapped due to their "poor quality", they may ultimately be released after all on this game's current DLC schedule. (The Meowth Balloon was released in the November 2020 DLC pack.)
*Unused Yuki voice clips exist, as well as an unused trick animation. Since the voice clips all contain very strong language, and the trick involves a panty shot, they were likely scrapped to avoid an M rating from the ESRB.
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