In its early beta stage, the game was known as Super Mario Kart R. Some differences were Kamek as a playable character who would later be replaced with Donkey Kong. Also there was an option to have the multiplayer screen set to horizontally or vertically, but this was removed in the final version. A number of other small differences were the avatars in the "Character Select" screen, the textures of the "Item Boxes", the feather as an item, and other minor graphic details.