Ah good old JavaScript. Not thought of too fondly by game developers, but, web developers sure like to put it to good use to recreate games within your browser. Case in point, Jacob Seidelin is a dedicated hacker who is putting his talent with JS to great use. How you ask? By hacking together a prototype version of Super Mario Kart in Javascript! Or, Super Mario Kart JS, if you will.

Complete with two courses (Mushroom Cup Round 1 and 2), opponents and soundtrack, SMKJS runs on FireFox 2 and 3, Opera 9.27+ and Safari 3.1.1+. IE users miss out, as they should for now upgrading to a real web browser. It uses the canvas element to do most of the rendering and the code (available here) weighs in at a nicely minimal 11 Kb.

At the moment, there is no lap count and the AI is a bit crude, but there is basic collision detection, which at least holds you back long enough to determine where you can cut corners.

Man, I really suck at Mario Kart DS, but even more important, I can never create an emblem for my cars, you know, to at least look cool while I’m getting slaughtered on the track. Thankfully, there is the awesome community site DSicons.com, a great little resource for all of us fashion concious Mario Kart racers who need the perfect icon on our rides before we hit the track. You’ll still need a little bit of artistic ability, but, with the zoomed walkthroughs that DSicons provide, it’s much easier for even an artistic clutz like myself to get a hot little hammer and sickle rolling on the front of my little Standard YS.

Read more: DSicons – Fresh icons for your Nintendo DS