EDMDI Kart 64

EDMDI Kart 64 (aka El Decente Mundo De Isai Kart 64) is a ROM hack of Mario Kart 64 by Isaí Games which includes seven new levels based on his EDMDI web series. It was released on 23 August 2023 as a BPS patch.

You can download the patch for the ROM on the download page by using the password eldecentemundodeisai or on Isai’s itch.io page. You can then patch the ROM by using the BPS patcher on a ROM file called Mario Kart 64 (U) [!].z64.

EDMDI Kart 64 style and gameplay

The mod is based off of El Decente Mundo De Isai (Isai’s Decent World), a webseries made by the creator of this MK64 hack. I’d describe the series as an abstract slice of life cartoon with some retro tech/gaming themes. The series itself is in Spanish, so it might be a bit difficult to follow if you don’t speak the language.

The gameplay is exactly the same as Mario Kart 64. You have the same playable characters and game modes, but this hack contains seven new levels based on scenes from the series.

La Sala (Isai)

This stage called “The Room” takes place indoors in Isai’s house, a reoccurring setting in the series. It has an 8-shape and is surrounded by various statues of characters from EDMDI. Overall it’s a nice first stage, but the sides of the road are the same colour as the top which makes it a bit hard to distinguish where the road is going towards.

Calle 1

Calle 1 is based off of “Vuelta al mundo en 80 segundos”. It’s more of an open-world kind of level where the main road is only a suggestion. You go through a city with a whole bunch of buildings and find your way to an underground tunnel which takes you to the end of your lap.

Secundaria

This school-based stage comes from the secondary school setting in “La gran fiesta Drillix” and the end of “Vuelta al mundo en 80 segundos”. I think it’s supposed to have a large jump like in Royal Raceway, but it doesn’t quite give that kind of boost.

Autopista Nerrel

I’m not really sure what this level is based off of, I think it’s supposed to be the area around one of the character’s apartments. It’s basically an urban nighttime sky road.

M.A.R.U.

On this stage, you weave your way through a tunnel filled to the brim with cats from the “La gran fiesta Drillix” episode.

Interweb

Obviously, this stage is based on “ENFRENTAMIENTO EN LA INTERWEB”. It contains a lot of different objects off the side of the road that are reminiscent of the early internet. Most of them look like the banners you’d see in sidebars as well as spam clickbait.

There is a QR code in there, but it was not legible.

Pedro’s World

Based on the “Mi nombre es Pedro Pedro” episode, this stage has various objects from Super Mario World that serve as obstacles throughout the race. This stage has some fairly treacherous curves and deep chasms to fall into.

The one thing that I don’t like about Pedro’s World is that there are some places where it’s almost impossible to see where you’re supposed to go without some trial and error like the purple area in the 2nd picture above.

Review and conclusion

EDMDI Kart 64 is the first hack of of Mario Kart 64 that I’ve looked at and I think that it is overall very impressive for what is essentially an in-joke for what is a small webseries. I am kind of glad that it did introduce me to El Decente Mundo De Isai; it does make me feel some kind of nostalgia for the kind of cartoon I’d see on Newgrounds back in the day.

The levels introduced in the hack are kind of hit and miss. I feel like each one was built around a particular concept that worked fine, but it then they added a bunch of padding in the form of straight boring stretches of road. This is most obvious in M.A.R.U. and Interweb.

The layout of some levels is also pretty unintuitive for a first-time run. You often can’t really see where you’re going because of the angles on the road and the shading/textures on the road itself blend in with the graphics of the off-road sections. Once you memorise the turns it becomes easier, but it’s still annoying the first time and an unfair challenge every other time.

Secundaria, Calle1 and M.A.R.U. don’t work on real hardware which is kind of a shame, but I would put this more on the the team behind the modding framework than Isai himself.

Overall, I’d say that EDMDI Kart 64 is a fun mod that helps bring a fun new perspective to the MK64 engine, but it could use a bit of polish to make the levels a bit more fair and intuitive. La Sala, Autopista Nerrel and Pedro’s World are actually pretty fun and creative, and I’d recommend that you give it a go on an emulator for the best experience.