Prepare for lift off

For the background, we will use an original Mario Kart map. You can find game images such as these all over the Internet. What's important to remember here is that the image you choose should fit your game screen. In this case, the game screen is 480 pixels wide and 360 pixels high, so a background image should be at least that size.

Another thing to note is that although these images may be freely available, it doesn't mean that they are completely free. The original artists put time and effort in creating them. Also the game studio and/or producer (Nintendo, in this case) invested money to promote and sell their game.

Engage thrusters

We will get a good-looking race map and place it as a background image in the Stage sprite:

The image will be shown in the Backdrops editor in its actual size or as big as possible if it's bigger than the stage area.

Your image might have different proportions than the stage area. In this case, you'll have to resize the image to fit the entire screen. To do this, follow these steps:

Objective complete – mini debriefing

When we're done editing the image, we'll have a racetrack which fills the entire stage. The track contains a well-defined road, some sandy areas around it, and some colorful borders and grass that a kart won't be able to cross. These different elements will become important later in the project. That's why we're taking note of them.