where the players attack each other with items inside one of four selectable arena courses. The players begin a match with three balloons attached to each of their karts. A player will lose one balloon each time their character is damaged by coming into contact with one of the other players' offending items, and is eliminated from play upon losing all balloons. The match ends when one player remains, who is then declared the winner. In three- or four-player matches, the first two players' characters to lose all their balloons will transform into mobile "Mini Bomb Karts" and forfeit the ability to win the match. The Mini Bomb Kart is still maneuverable by the player and can collide and inflict damage on another player only once, after which it can no longer participate. The racetrack map with players' locations can be viewed as a miniature map, rectangular progress bar ("Rank Data"), or a speedometer can be shown instead. On Yoshi's Valley, the rectangular progress bar does not identify characters due to the vagueness of the course's paths. Playable characters Mario Kart 64 features eight playable characters: Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Toad, Yoshi, Bowser, Wario and Donkey Kong. The characters are divided into three weight classes: lightweights, whose karts have the highest acceleration and top speed in trade for low weight; heavyweights, whose karts have higher weight to knock around players and lose less speed while turning, but suffer from slightly lower top speed and acceleration; and middleweights, who have mediocre acceleration and the same top speed as the heavyweights, but have much better control of steering. The game was originally to feature the character Kamek, a villainous character from Yoshi's Island, before being replaced by Donkey Kong. Development Production began in 1995 with the title Super Mario Kart R, where the "R" means "rendered". The game was developed concurrently with Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, intended to be a launch game for the Nintendo 64 (N64), but more resources were given to the other two. Mario series creator Shigeru Miyamoto acted as producer and often consulted with game director Hideki Konno. Some early footage of the game was showcased briefly at the Shoshinkai Software Exhibition in Japan on 24 November 1995. Miyamoto stated that the game was 95% complete, but Nintendo chose not to display a playable version due to the difficult logistics of