Penguin Kart Racer

Sixteen circuits at the bottom of the world. Six penguins. One orca who wants the ice back.

Penguin Kart Racer is an arcade kart racer in the low-poly, flat-shaded style of the late nineties. Hold the drift, bank the boost, and cash it in coming out of the corner.

Adventure Mode

Drive through four regions, each with its own hub world, its own sky, and its own gate to the next. Every one of the sixteen tracks tests you three ways:

Single Race: Beat the field. First place, nothing less.

Time Trial: Race the clock, and smash crates around the lap to win back seconds.

PKR Challenge: Collect the P, K and R letters and finish first. You need both.

That makes 48 awards to earn. Collect enough and each region's boss will race you: Skarn the skua, Blubberjaw the elephant seal, Vex the leopard seal, and Kaiser Kilo the orca. Beat all four, and something much larger rises from the water.

Race, Cup and Battle

Race: Any track, any racer, no pressure.

Cup: Four tracks back to back with points at every finish line. The standings are what count.

Battle: Five arenas, from a shallow bowl to a yard with four ramped towers to a bare hill with nowhere to hide. Win cups to unlock them.

Split-screen: Up to four players on one screen.

Items Worth Having

Five standard pickups, plus a signature item for every racer. Emperor's Full Ahead is the fastest thing in the game but costs you most of your steering. Chinstrap drops a wall of three anchors. Blubberjaw spins out everyone within thirteen metres.

Then there's Rime, the guardian spirit. Rime only appears for whoever is in last place: it circles your kart, blocks one hit, and pushes you back into the race. Rime also explains each challenge and, after a loss, suggests which penguin best suits the track that beat you. Bosses carry their own mask: Erebus.