Minecart Madness



Stock Platform Game level in which you ride in a minecart, and have to dodge various obstacles and enemies. The track is usually broken, with gaps to jump over, and possibly multiple routes. You usually only have limited controls, with the main one being the ability to jump out of the cart or make the cart itself jump (don't ask how you do the latter), and others sometimes included, such as being able to slow down or speed up.

While this usually takes place in an Underground Level, in a minecart, some variants take place in different settings.

The name comes one such level from Donkey Kong Country, which was probably inspired by the Rollercoaster Mine sequence from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.


 * The Donkey Kong Country series features a number of such levels. These include some straight version on minecarts, along with roller coaster-based levels and at least one on a sled. One was even a race; you had to win first place by causing your opponents to plunge to their demise to get that stage's Video Game Hero Coin. The levels came in two flavors, one type has the cart itself jump and the other has you jumping out of the cart.
 * Donkey Kong Country Returns features even more minecart levels, with more than just broken tracks to deal with. Hazards include falling crystals, crumbling platforms, and one miner mole actively tossing bombs onto your track to blow holes in it. You can at least tell the two varieties of carts apart: Minecarts loaded with blue crystal ore won't jump when you do, because DK rides on top of them rather than sitting down inside.
 * In Donkey Kong 64 you can also lean left and right during the minecart sections, and use this to choose between two paths where it splits on occasion. In the final ride, very hidden in the seventh world, you also have to hop between tracks with your minecart to dodge various obstacles, including the attacks of the Demon Resident.
 * ...And, of course, Indiana Jones Greatest Adventures had this as the penultimate level of the "Temple of Doom" portion of the game. It was, of course, Nintendo Hard -- making even one mistake would be a one-hit KO.
 * Let's not forget Indiana Jones and The Infernal Machine which featured a minecart sequence as an homage to said scene from Temple.
 * Lego Indiana Jones also has a mine cart level, obviously from Temple of Doom
 * The famous scene in question was also recreated in the arcade game adaptation of the movie by Atari Games.
 * Tomb Raider 3. In this case, the main objective is to get the minecart to go fast enough to jump gaps, but not so fast as to fly off the track and kill Lara. Lara can bash switches with a convenient wrench to change tracks.
 * Taz-Mania for Genesis.
 * Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures, where you have to shoot obstacles out of the way to clear the way for Pac-Man, and other than that can only speed up.
 * You also had to shoot Pac-Man to get him to jump over obstacles.
 * Appears as a minigame in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.
 * Grandia has a cutscene like this early in the game.
 * The first Hebereke game, Ufouria, a NES Metroidvania, has a mine area, which naturally has mine cart rides.
 * The first 16-bit The Smurfs videogame (by Infogrames) had a mine cart level late in the game (Act 11). While jumping was not possible, the hero had to crouch under obstacles and activate all switches under the penalty of reaching a dead-end.
 * Super Paper Mario has some rather straightforward mine cart rides in the Cragnons stage.
 * Super Mario RPG had one of these as a sort of minigame after completing one of the dungeons. In between sections of sidescrolling, some parts used Mode 7, and you had to hold left or right to make the correct turns. The only penalty for going off the rails was the loss of a bit of time as your car slid back onto the track.
 * The first Mario Party has a minecart racing minigame. You and your teammate must tap the A button to gather speed, and must lean the cart in the corners. If you go too fast or don't lean properly, you'll fall and lose the game.
 * Mario Party 2 also had this minigame.
 * Minecraft has craftable minecarts and placeable tracks, both useful for transportation and for custom roller coasters.
 * Underground Zone, the first zone of the Game Gear version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, had some mining cart segments. Because this was adapted from the Master System version by just making the player's window on the world smaller to fit the smaller screen, later parts of this level are incredibly frustrating.
 * In a sort of inversion, the main villain of Tails' Skypatrol was a witch who rode around in a mining cart.
 * Sonic Heroes has mine cart-esque sections within a Haunted Castle.
 * Sonic Rush Series Adventure featured a stage with minecarts; the second act even switched the camera's perspective to behind-the-back 3D during one of them.
 * Formerly, Act 2 of Lost Labyrinth Zone in Sonic the Hedgehog 4, after it received a poor reception. Although it still appears near the end, its motion controls were scrapped. The iPhone version of the game still has this feature, while the console versions retooled the stage into a Blackout Basement.
 * Kirby had his share of minecarts as well. The Great Cave Offensive, one of the games packed into Kirby Super Star had one segment between each of the four major areas.
 * These segments are rather relaxing, actually, as there's no need to dodge enemies; they all die when you run into them. Plus, hitting walls destroys the cart but leaves Kirby totally unharmed.
 * It becomes a little more difficult in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards where you have to jump over rocks and gaps in time.
 * In La-Mulana, the boss fight against Ellmac, guardian of the Temple of the Sun, is set entirely in a minecart chase. Oh, and Ellmac happens to be a screen-filling frilled lizard who spits fireballs, a la Bowser.
 * The Arcade game Rail Chase is entirely this, you are riding a minecart shooting enemies in your path.
 * Rocket Knight Adventures had one of these at the end of its second stage.
 * In I Wanna Be the Guy, you have to survive a minecart ride in order to reach The Guy's castle.
 * Part of Stage 8 of The Subspace Emissary in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which was influenced by Donkey Kong Country. An added bonus: In riding the carts, you often got to run over several Goddamned Bats in the process.
 * Really, it was probably inspired more by "Kirby Super Star", in that you got to plow over enemies with impunity. There may have been a few parts where you had to jump to avoid being dumped in a pit, take a better route, or abandon the cart and grab a pickup, though (to translate this into TV Tropes-speak, these would be "Press X to Not Die", "Press X to Make The Game Easier", and "Press X to get One Hundred Percent Completion", respectively.)
 * Captain Comic 2 has a mine cart level early on.
 * Resident Evil 4 has one of these. Unlike most examples, jumping off the cart, or with it, for that matter, isn't exactly an option.
 * The freeware game Within a Deep Forest had one of these very briefly to get from point A to point B in an exploration area. Getting back was easier.
 * The Trolley in Tomba 2 is this trope as That One Sidequest.
 * Referenced in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, of all places. In a secret area in the Canada level, there's a minecart rail that can be grinded on, causing the player to smack into a minecart which zooms off down the track. Grinding the rail to the end scores a bonus called "Obligatory Video Game Minecart Sequence".
 * Apparently, this is only in the PlayStation 2 version of the game. The Canada area on the PS 1 has no such section. :(
 * Final Fantasy VI features both the vanilla mine cart ride, as well as two other water-related segments (a raft ride and an ocean crossing) that function similarly in terms of mostly forced travel.
 * Non-video game example: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disney Theme Parks is the rollercoaster example of this, taking the rider through an exploding mine at one point.
 * Six Flags: Over Georgia has the Mine Train. I haven't ridden it in ages.
 * Six Flags: Wild Waves / Enchanted Village also has/had one of these.
 * The long-gone "Flight To Mars" at the Seattle Center.
 * Mario Kart Wii features the Wario's Gold Mine track, apparently takes place on one of the roads that mine carts use, though you drive your normal vehicles and instead dodge mine carts in some sections. ...mine kart, anyone?
 * You can do something like this in Crash Team Racing on the mining level if you have the invincibility mask on.
 * Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex had possibly the slowest and dullest mine cart level ever seen.
 * There's a level portion in Timesplitters: Future Perfect like this. Only with Headsprouters who like to grab at you from the ceiling instead of gaps in the track. You end up being hurled out of the cart anyway when the plot demands it.
 * Golden Sun has you solving several puzzles to traverse the Altin Mines by mine carts.
 * Dark Dawn has them as a stock puzzle element. That is, you'll encounter minecarts way more often than you'd like to.
 * Quackshot, features a couple of minecarting sections. Not really surprising, considering the game's premise is basically "Donald Duck as Indiana Jones".
 * Cyclops's levels had long mine-carting sections in Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade's Revenge.
 * The Legendary Starfy.
 * Brave Fencer Musashi had an incredibly tough, speedy Minecart Madness scene. Many players have died many times while going through it.
 * Two words:Dark. Savior. Your character, the mine cart, and -everything- are rendered into bad polygonal models(the game usually used sprites for the characters), and the jumps are frequently hard to see due to the camera(which also constantly gets blocked by the scenery) and there are no checkpoints. It's That One Level.
 * Appropriately enough, the Harry Potter games have levels like this whenever you go to Gringotts - dodging collapsed pit props and trying to catch coins. It's an even worse setup for a bank than the book version, at least they kept the money in vaults...
 * Gunstar Heroes has the level and boss fight against Green, the entirety of which is spent in a seizure-inducingly fast cart. Most of it is horizontal scrolling, with some vertical sections in the boss fight, and double-jumping reverses the gravity for your cart.
 * Adventure Quest Worlds has this as part of the Dwarfhold setting.
 * The Kooky Kraken in Backyard Skateboarding.
 * Armored Armadillo's stage in Mega Man X has several brief minecart moments.
 * Banjo-Tooie has Glitter Gulch Mine, where at you must race a character in a mine cart twice.
 * Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2 had a western-themed level which included riding on several mine carts.
 * Brutal Legend has a twisting mine cart track through the Dry Ice Mines area. The mine carts don't move, but you can drive the Druid Plow down the tracks if you please (Indeed, one of the Race missions has you doing exactly that.)
 * The Half Life series has two. The first, "On the Rails" in 1, has an electric cart that crashes off the tracks at the end if you jam the throttle forward. And the finale of Ravenholm in 2 has a mine cart with spinning blades on it that you can use to decapitate all the zombies nearby.
 * As well as in Episode Two when exploring the abandoned mine with the Vortigaunt, where you fall down a hole and land in a big mine cart that goes careening out of control down a sloped track, smashing through wooden structures and slaughtering zombies in its wake before finally sending you down a deep pit and landing in a pool of water. There's no racing, shooting, or dodging involved (or at least not any require), but it is incredibly awesome.
 * Battletoads has such a level. It kills players systematically.
 * "Enemy Mine" in Medal of Honor: Frontline is a Rail Shooter level on a minecart. No, not that Enemy Mine.
 * The Lion King game's Can't Wait To Be King level is just like this, except replace "mine cart" with "ostrich". After Simba goes through the hordes of monkey-flipping and giraffe-hopping, Simba must ride an ostrich and can only either make himself and the bird duck, have the bird jump, or jump as well. Many a gamer who played this game will remember this well because this is probably as far as most of us will ever get in the game without skipping levels.
 * The worst level in that entire game is the seventh. Goddamned Bats indeed. Although it's not a mine cart one, unless riding the logs through the lava counts.
 * In Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure there was a level like this. It wasn't very kind on you if you made any kind of mistake.
 * The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap used this, as can be seen in the page image. It was also used in Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages, as well as in Spirit Tracks (in the Fire Temple) and Skyward Sword.
 * Final level of world 1 in Gish features one of these. Although you don't have to take the mine cart if you don't have to.
 * You'll be riding in one in Alundra 2, after the second proper boss battle.
 * Dragon Quest V has a cave with obstacles that require a mine cart to make jumps and require the right tracks to switch.
 * Seen in a Lucky Luke game, Desperado Train for the Game Boy Color. Despite being Nintendo Hard (aptly enough), may be the Best Level Ever once you get used to it.
 * The 1999 trailer for Duke Nukem Forever revealed that the game was supposed to include some of these.
 * Soldier of Fortune has a short mine cart sequence in Sudan.
 * Bagman aka Gilligan's Gold.
 * The thought lost game Bio Force Ape, when recovered, was discovered to have a strange one: the second level is set in mines, and you can jump into a minecart...but it just scrolls automatically, you can't die and it seems to be one of many elements solely put in to demonstrate how great their programming was.
 * Mother 3 was planned to have one back in its Nintendo 64 incarnation; indeed, that particular sequence was pretty much all over the gaming news of the day. When it finally emerged on Game Boy Advance, no such sequence existed.
 * The entirety of the rail shooter arcade games called Rail Chase.
 * New Super Mario Bros Wii has a stage in World 8 where you ride atop skeletal snake-dragon platforms that act like real-world roller coasters; they slow as they go up the track and speed up as they go down, and there are a lot of gaps, dips into molten lava and jumps over lava fountains. It's a pretty hard stage, and the snake-platforms screeching like demons every now and then doesn't help.
 * Gears of War has a scene where you split up with player 2 and ride a mine kart. You use a gatling gun attached to the kart to shoot down locusts, and sometimes ride alongside player 2.
 * Shadow Complex has a mine area with a cart. You use it to gain momentum in order to reach the other side of a pit. There's also a secondary mine cart area right near the bottom of the map, acting as a shortcut, but you'll have the friction dampener by then, making it more useful to just run at insane speed down the corridor.
 * Red Dead Redemption has one mission where you escort a minecart that's carrying a gatling gun through a mine. Once you reach outside, a short ride on the cart awaits.
 * One of the minigames in the Rugged Mountain area of the Pokemon Dream World has you guiding a Sableye along a mine cart track to collect gems.
 * Yoshi's Story actually did this with Chinese dragon heads.
 * Some of the levels of Super Mario 3D Land feature large green monorails that are operated by having the player step on two large arrows facing either end of the monorail, causing it to go in the direction the arrow points. If the monorail moves over a geyser or a lava eruption it will bounce up and land on a higher track. Also, the final level of the game had you go through Bowser's castle on a skeletonized version of these.