About Super Mario Kart
Super Mario Kart is the 1992 kart racer that started the Mario Kart series. Nintendo EAD developed it for the Super Nintendo, with Tadashi Sugiyama and Hideki Konno directing and Shigeru Miyamoto producing. It came out in Japan on August 27, 1992, in North America days later and in Europe in January 1993, and it sold 8.76 million copies, making it the fourth best-selling SNES game.
You pick one of eight Mario characters, each handling differently, and race seven rivals through four cups of five tracks at 50cc, 100cc or 150cc. Question-mark panels on the track hand out shells, bananas, stars and other items, while coins raise your top speed and protect you when you’re hit. Power slides and short hops help through the corners. Besides the Grand Prix there is Time Trial, and two players can share the screen for a Grand Prix, a one-on-one Match Race or Battle Mode, where each kart carries three balloons. Critics praised its presentation and its use of Mode 7 graphics.
How it runs in your browser
This isn’t the SNES game. Super Mario Kart ZX is a fan remake that Perez, credited on the splash screen as SrPerez, built in GameMaker and describes as having widescreen support and up to four players. burnedpopcorn ported it to the web in 2024 using GameMaker’s WebAssembly runner, and it is hosted on GitHub Pages. Pressing Play opens it in a new tab. There’s no account and nothing to install; the browser downloads a game file of about 19 MB.
On 3 November 2026, in desktop Chrome, the first load took about a minute. A SrPerez splash came first, then a “Gamepad recommended” screen, and pressing Enter led to the title menu with Start Game, Options and Quit. We didn’t start a race.
burnedpopcorn calls this release a proof of concept and lists two known bugs: after you quit a course, the next screen can stay black, and a restart option meant for Time Trial can also be picked in the Grand Prix. If a screen goes black, reload the page.
Controls and devices
The game’s own control screen shows the arrow keys to steer, X to accelerate, C to jump and Z to use an item, with Enter as Start. It recommends a gamepad, and a controller is the closer match to the SNES pad. We found no touch controls, so phones and tablets aren’t a good fit.
Who it’s for
It’s for players who searched for Super Mario Kart online and want a remake of the SNES game in a browser tab, ideally with a controller in hand. Expect a fan project with rough edges rather than a polished release. For Mario on foot, Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Galaxy also run in a browser.
Is Super Mario Kart ZX Free, Safe and Official?
Is this the original Super Mario Kart from the SNES?
No. Super Mario Kart ZX is a fan remake of the 1992 game, made by Perez in GameMaker and ported to the browser by burnedpopcorn. It isn’t an emulator, and it isn’t made or endorsed by Nintendo.
Can I play Super Mario Kart online with friends?
No. There’s no online play. Perez describes the remake as supporting up to four players, but we haven’t tested multiplayer in the browser version.
Does Super Mario Kart ZX work on a phone?
We found no touch controls, and the game opens with a screen that recommends a gamepad. Use a computer with a keyboard or a controller.
