Mario Kart’s Blue Shell (officially Spiny Shell) is one of the most iconic items in video game history. It is also one of the most controversial. A mainstay of the series since Mario Kart 64, the Blue Shell is a laser-guided missile aimed primarily at players. It’s almost unavoidable and completely unavoidable in older games. Every Mario Kart player knows that sense of dread—and childish injustice—that accompanies the sudden, high-pitched wail of the Blue Shell siren, heralding the unceremonious end of your enjoyable race lead. But a research project at Queen’s University Belfast has asked a fascinating question about Blue Shell: does it even work?
Of course, the blue shell works in the literal sense of the word – it stokes the hopes and dreams of first place with chilling accuracy. The question is whether it does what it is designed to do and what people believe it to do. And if not, why is it such an essential part of the game?
Blue Shell’s fame can mask its unusual status in games: it’s surprisingly rare for items in competitive multiplayer to specifically target a leader, let alone incapacitate them for a few seconds. “It’s not so?” […] a bit unfair?” asked Kotaku skeptically Hideki Konno, “the man behind Mario Kart”, back in 2011. One answer now would be that it might not be fair: “unfair” game mechanics are very important to how many games works too hard, unpredictable traps and harsh punishments can help build the world, give the game a sense of risk and difficulty, and shape the player’s response.
But that’s not the answer Konno gave. Instead, Konno stated that the Blue Shell was invented to try to make racing more competitive and fair: “We wanted to create a race where everyone would be in it until the end.” The various defenses of the Blue Shell are based on the same idea: that the Blue Shell is “obviously” a mechanism for maintaining competitiveness. “Apparently it’s the Great Equalizer – a hovering blue embodiment of pure carnage that gives back-of-the-pack players a fighting chance,” argued Nathan Grayson in 2014, citing a video by popular YouTuber Extra History: “One reason for the Blue Shell to exist, of course, is to serve as a catch-up mechanism […] The blue shell helps ensure that no one is left completely in the dust with no chance of coming back.”
But it is true? Does Blue Shell help keep plants competitive? Alex McMillan, then an MSc computer science student at QUB, decided to put this bit of gaming folk wisdom to the test. They came up with a metric called “competitive proximity” to measure how close Mario Kart races are to each other: basically, it averages the distance between each consecutive pair of cars – first and second, second and third, etc. – so it measures how close they are. the race is as a whole, rather than just a race between first and second. (After all, beating Pink Yoshi to fifth place in a duff race might be what gets you the tournament, and Blue Shell is specifically designed to help those in the back.)
Then they tested it. 50 test participants each completed three races in Mario Kart 64, all at Luigi’s Raceway (to avoid environmental hazards affecting the results). One race had a regular probability of getting a Blue Shell; one was three times more likely than usual to get a Blue Shell if you were far enough along to qualify for one; and one removed the Blue Shell completely.
Result? Blue Shells don’t significantly affect how close Mario Kart races are. They might make the race leader curse loudly enough to scare the cat, but unlike, say, Golden Mushrooms or Bullet Bills, the player who gets the Blue Shell won’t meaningfully help in getting the Blue Shell. So it’s pretty official: Blue Shell is not a fairness or competitive mechanic, and it doesn’t do what it was officially designed to do.
But Kosuke Yabuki, director of Mario Kart 7 and 8, told Eurogamer in 2017 that when developers experimented with removing the Blue Shell, they concluded that “there’s something missing in the game”. So while the Blue Shell’s mechanical function during the race is surprisingly small, it has an important psychological function for the player. What can it be?
In his conclusion, McMillan speculates that Blue Shell is for players whose goal has changed: they are so far gone that they no longer count on winning and may feel disconnected from the race. The blue shell gives players an “illusion of agency” far back, allowing them to “still feel like they’re influencing the race”. The blue shell allows the group of players to feel the sense of excitement and freud that accompanies the panic of the race leader, but also specifically allows the player who threw it to feel noticed, impressive and dangerous. In a game with a lot of pent-up frustration, Blue Shell allows backmarkers to work out their frustrations in the lead race, which can help a group – or even a solo player – release pent-up tension and feel bigger. positive about playing.
Yabuki himself hints at this: “Something that I personally really think is the human emotion element of the gaming experience,” he says, “[and] if you have something that feels unfair or makes you angry… Everyone is different in this regard. What you feel is unfair might be different for someone else.” Yabuki describes that he wants to balance the emotions of the experience so that even if that player feels frustrated on any given day, they’ll still come back to Mario Kart the next week. So the blue shell can to help spread frustration across a wider group rather than focusing on specific players.
Items that prioritize speed, especially at the expense of other players, are usually most useful to help backseat racers catch up: “Lightning actually does what players want Blue Shell to do, because it slows everyone down. except you,” notes McMillan. So if you really want to fight for victory, prioritize speed items. However, Mario Kart isn’t just a video game, it’s also the most famous party game, and that’s where Blue Shell’s accidental genius comes from: Blue Shell can provide a way for less experienced or less fortunate players to let off steam without dampening their spirits. , and can act as a reminder to race leaders to pay attention to their friends, even if it’s to give them the middle finger.
So the next time you send someone a Blue Shell, don’t forget to remind them that it’s in the spirit of friendship.