A 2006 racing game built on spring-powered toy cars, a licence that fell through and a long road from Windows to Xbox Live Arcade and Steam.
Mad Tracks is a 2006 racing game from Paris studio Load Inc. in which spring-powered toy cars race through everyday settings such as bistros and toy stores. It began as a licensed Darda toy game, was released for Windows and later reached Xbox 360, Wii, iOS and Steam.
Mad Tracks is a racing game in which players drive spring-powered toy cars through everyday places such as bistros and toy stores. Paris studio Load Inc. made it as its debut title, starting from a toy-car licence that fell through. The game then reached Windows, Xbox 360, Wii, iOS and Steam over the following years.
What is Mad Tracks?
Known in France as Small Cars 3D, Mad Tracks is a racing video game that first appeared on Windows in February 2006. Players control a toy car set in 3D environments, competing in races and minigames across 46 courses. Load Inc. developed the game, which was inspired by Darda toy cars.
The game was the debut title of Load Inc., a studio founded in 2003 by two former Ubisoft employees, Denis Bourdain and Thomas Leinekugel. The studio was still looking for a publisher while the game took shape, and Micro Application later agreed to release it in France.
Spring-powered toy cars, a licence that collapsed and a game that kept finding new platforms.
How does the spring-powered car work?
Each toy car runs on a spring battery. The longer the throttle is held, the weaker the spring becomes, until it runs out and acceleration stops. Letting go of the button recharges it at once, and it also recharges while the car is airborne or reversing.
Power-ups offer another way to refill the spring, and one of them drains the batteries of opponents. The amount of spring use also depends on which car the player chooses. Players can switch camera angles at any time, including a first-person view, and they can return to the last checkpoint automatically or by pressing a button, which helps after a fall off the track.
What game modes and courses are included?
Mad Tracks has 46 courses, each split into races and minigames. The races include laps, point-to-point runs, time attacks, a weakest link format and bobsleigh, while minigames cover mini golf, billiards, bowling and table football. Settings include a bistro, a toy store and a mini golf course, all rendered in 3D.
Adventure is the single-player mode, where gold trophies go to players who reach goals like lapping a course or parking a car on a dartboard. Arcade is the multiplayer mode, which uses the same objectives. Up to four players can share one screen locally and up to eight can play online. The PC version supports LAN play, while the Wii and mobile versions support four players.
Who made Mad Tracks and how was it built?
Load Inc., a Paris studio founded in 2003, made Mad Tracks with a team of 10 people. Thomas Leinekugel managed the project and Florian Pernot led programming, while music was provided by La Chimiz Prod and Denis Bourdain handled business development. The core team had experience in racing games such as POD and the F-1 Grand Prix series.
Two earlier racers shaped its design. Micro Machines from 1991 inspired the visuals, split-screen play and multiplayer, while TrackMania from 2003 shaped the physics and the way cars interact with their surroundings.
How did a licensed toy game become Mad Tracks?
The team first planned a licensed game based on Darda toy cars, after the 2003 GDC and E3 events suggested a market for mid-priced car games. When the studio could not secure the Darda brand's intellectual property rights, the project was reworked and renamed Mad Tracks.
Development began for Windows and PlayStation 2, and a PlayStation Portable version was announced at E3 2004. The PlayStation 2 version was dropped because the console had become a less viable target and harder to develop for. The reasons for dropping the PlayStation Portable version are not known.
How did the Xbox 360 version reach Xbox Live Arcade?
Load Inc. chose the Xbox 360 that summer, once Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade team judged the game a good fit for a service short of racing titles. The port took about a year with seven employees, and the studio received its first development kit in September.
The port was one of the first games on the service to offer multiple languages. Microsoft's storage limit of 50 MB meant the game had to be split into three parts, and the port used DirectX 10 where the PC version used DirectX 9.
The Xbox 360 port was announced in April 2006 for a June release. On August 10 it was delayed to the following year because of time and technical problems, and the code was rewritten to run on Xbox Live Arcade. D3 Publisher of America later published it, and the game arrived on May 30, 2007 for 800 Microsoft points.
Two downloadable content packs, Bravo and Encore, each added nine races and six minigames to the Xbox 360 version.
When did each version come out?
Mad Tracks reached French shops on Windows on 17 February 2006, and later versions followed for Xbox 360 in 2007, Wii in 2009, iOS in 2011 and Steam in 2020. The table lists the main releases with the first market for each platform.
| Platform | First release | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | 17 February 2006 (France) | Published by Micro Application and sold in Auchan supermarkets |
| Xbox 360 | 30 May 2007 | Xbox Live Arcade at 800 Microsoft points, published by D3 Publisher of America |
| Wii | 4 December 2009 (France) | Published by Neko Entertainment and bundled with the Wii Wheel |
| iOS | 14 December 2011 | Published by Namco Bandai |
| Steam | 10 March 2020 | Reworked high-definition version published by Plug In Digital |
The PC release reached more markets during 2006. The German edition came from Frogster Interactive later that February, Akella published the Russian version on June 13, and Nicolas Games released the Polish version on October 20. An early update, version 1.1, cut the file size from 55 to 29 MB.
The Xbox 360 listing was later removed in February 2019 after the publishing rights moved from D3 Publisher to Plug In Digital, and the Xbox One gained backward compatibility in February 2017.
How did critics and players respond?
Critics were divided, and the Xbox 360 version landed in the mixed or average range on Metacritic. Sales were stronger than the reviews, with a PC demo downloaded 400,000 times by July 2006 and over 1.8 million units reported sold by December 2007.
The Xbox 360 version was nominated for Best Home Console Game at the Video Game Festival in Paris in September 2007. Reviewers at IGN called it a decent racing romp, while GamesRadar+ praised the variety of courses and online support and criticised the visuals and a thin basic version.
On PC, Gameswelt criticised the controls, audio and the lack of a level editor, and said the graphics were better suited to shareware. The Wii version drew complaints about motion controls and lag from the Wii Wheel, and Pocket Gamer praised the iOS version's variety while criticising its visuals and the grind needed to progress.
Early numbers were large. Load Inc. was encouraged by the PC demo, which was downloaded 6,000 times in Brazil in its first two weeks, and GameSpot and CNET Download each relayed about 100,000 downloads. By January 2007 about 100,000 digital PC sales had been made.
The Xbox 360 numbers were strong as well. The game had 630,000 users six months after its Xbox Live Arcade launch, and by June 2008 the demo had been played 700,000 times and 72,000 units had sold. The demo reached 1 million downloads by February 2010.
What happened to the game after release?
On July 29, 2024, the game was taken off the Xbox 360 store together with more than 220 other digital titles. That left the game no longer purchasable and not backward compatible with the Xbox Series X and Series S.
Load Inc. moved on to Things on Wheels, which reached Xbox Live Arcade on May 12, 2010. A third project, codenamed WCTYY and short for We Can't Tell You Yet, was announced in June 2008. The studio later closed, but the game remained available through digital storefronts for years.
