Items guide

Nine items, from a plunger rocket to a grand piano: what each one does, how hard it hits, how to get the most out of it and how to stay out of its way.

How items work

• Drive through an item box to take what is inside. You hold one item at a time and keep it until you use it; being wrecked loses it.
• While a Bubble Bath, Hot Sauce or Mega Burp you used is still working, item boxes give you nothing and stay up for the next kart.
• An empty box comes back five seconds later. Every kart has the same chances from a box, leading or last: Plunger Rockets turn up most often and the Grand Piano least.
• Big Wave Beach has sixteen item boxes, and two of them sit on top of the Sandcastle Mound.
• Whatever you hold rides on your kart, so you can read a rival's kart before they fire: the plunger cannon, the duck launcher or the gatling on the nose, the seagull or the burp horn on the roll cage, the cushions, the hot sauce or the piano catapult on the back. Only the Bubble Bath stays hidden until it is used.
• Nothing can be used during the countdown before a match.

Damage, health and healing

• Every kart has 100 health. At zero it is wrecked, and it comes back three seconds later at full health, with three seconds in which nothing can hurt it or blast it about, though other karts can still bump it.
• After six seconds without taking damage, a kart mends at 8 health a second.
• Explosions hurt most at their centre and less towards their edge. A wall, a hut, a rock or the sandcastle keep between you and a blast soaks up three quarters of it.
• Your own explosions never hurt you; they only give you a shove.
• There are no teams: every other kart can hit you, and you can hit every one of them.
• A solid hit slows your kart to about a third of its speed and spins it out for up to a second, with no steering until it ends. A lighter hit only makes it wobble for a moment.
• Shots cannot be shot down, but anything solid stops them, beach props included: a rocket, a duck, a seagull or a piano that hits a beach ball goes off right there.

Plunger Rocket

Two shots per pickup, a third of a second apart, one from each cannon on the nose. They fly dead straight along the slope you are on, at 50 metres a second plus your own speed, and keep going until they hit something: far enough to cross the whole beach. A direct hit takes half a kart's health and spins it out, so two hits wreck a kart at full health, and a near miss still catches it in the blast.

• Use it: line up before you fire, and send the second shot where the target is going.
• Dodge it: turn. Rockets never curve, so a kart that keeps changing direction is hard to hit from across the beach, and huts and props make good shields.

Ducky Trio

Three rubber ducks at once, in a narrow fan: one straight ahead and one about 8 degrees to each side, as fast as a rocket. A duck hits for 30, less than a rocket, but up close all three land for 90, nearly a whole kart's health. The fan spreads as it flies, and at 15 metres usually only the middle duck connects.

• Use it: get close, or fire into a group.
• Dodge it: keep your distance from a kart with ducks on its nose.

Seagull

A homing gull that takes off from your roll cage. As it launches it picks a target among the rivals within about 48 metres and up to about 70 degrees either side of where your kart is pointing, favouring the nearest and the most nearly straight ahead. It flies at 32 metres a second plus half your speed for up to four seconds, turning after its target and climbing or dropping to match it. If its target is wrecked first, or nobody was in front of you, it looks for a new one from wherever it is. A hit does 48.

• Use it: point your kart at the rival you want before you let it go. In front means where your kart points, not who is ahead on the scoreboard.
• Dodge it: put something solid between you and the gull, or sit it out in a Bubble Bath: it does not go round a bubble, it bursts on it.

Gumball Gatling

Hold the button and the gun in the middle of your nose sprays 12 gumballs a second, 36 in all: three seconds of fire. Each gumball does 2.5 damage out to 15 metres, fading to half that at 40 metres, and gives a little shove without spinning the target out. A full drum adds up to 90 at most, so the gatling alone cannot wreck a kart at full health: use it to finish off a damaged kart, or to soften one up for something bigger.

• Use it: stay close and keep the target in front of you; you can steer while you fire.
• Dodge it: get out of its line, or out of its range: a gumball flies about 44 metres, a little further from a moving kart.

Whoopee Cushion

Two cushions per pickup, dropped two metres behind you a quarter of a second apart. They are live the moment they land, and any rival that drives within about two metres of one sets it off: about 35 damage and a big bounce into the air. Each lasts 45 seconds, and you can have four down at once; a fifth takes away your oldest. They stay on the beach when you are wrecked and vanish if you leave the room. Your own cushions never go off under you, and any kart they wreck counts as your knockout.

• Use it: drop them where rivals have to drive: next to item boxes, at the foot of ramps, on the slopes of the mound. Or drop one when a rival is right on your tail.
• Dodge it: watch the sand behind karts that had cushions on their back. A kart in a Bubble Bath sets cushions off without taking any damage.

Bubble Bath

Five seconds in a bubble that stops everything: no damage and no knockback from blasts, gumballs or rams, however many hit you. Hits do not pop it; only time does. Nothing shows on your kart while you are holding one, so nobody sees it coming. While the bubble is up, item boxes give you nothing, and other karts can still bump you about.

• Use it: when a seagull or a piano is on its way, to drive through a crowd, or to clear a patch of whoopee cushions. Computer racers do not waste their shots on a kart in a bubble.

Hot Sauce

Two and a half seconds of speed: your top speed goes from 17 to 24 metres a second, and the kart drives itself flat out whatever you press, so all you do is steer. The flames are for show; the damage comes from ramming. Bump into a rival who is not on hot sauce, the two of you closing at more than 9 metres a second, and they take 25 damage, a shove and a spin, whichever of you did the driving. If both karts are on hot sauce, nobody rams anybody. Getting spun out ends the boost early, it only pushes while your wheels are on the sand, and item boxes give you nothing while it runs. In Derby, the ram gives way to Derby's own crash damage (see the modes guide).

• Use it: to get away, to reach a box or the mound first, or to ram a slow kart.

Mega Burp

The burp horn on your roll cage charges for three tenths of a second, then blasts every kart within 9 metres away from wherever you are by then. A rival right beside you loses about a third of their health and one at the edge about a tenth, and everyone up to about 7 metres away spins out. The burp never hurts you, and if you are wrecked while it charges, it never goes off.

• Use it: when you are surrounded, or to clear the top of the mound in King of the Mound.

Grand Piano

The rarest item, and the only one that wrecks a kart at full health in one hit: a direct hit does 120. The catapult on your back lobs it forward in a low arc, and it comes down less than a second later, about 27 metres ahead if you are standing still and about 35 metres ahead at full speed. It catches karts from further away than any other shot, and its landing hurts anything within 6.5 metres, but only a direct hit is a sure wreck: a kart 2 metres from where it lands takes around 80.

• Use it: on a rival about 30 metres ahead, or into a crowd.
• Dodge it: it cannot steer, so turn away from where it is coming down, or pop a Bubble Bath.

The beach fights back

Big Wave Beach has two fireworks crates. Break one and it goes off a moment later, with up to 45 damage to every kart within 4.5 metres; the blast counts as yours, and it cannot hurt you. A crate comes back 18 seconds after it blows. The bolted-down bins stop rockets and ducks aimed at you, though not a blast; the huts, the rocks and the sandcastle keep stop shots and soak up three quarters of a blast as well.

New to the game? Start with how to play.