First of all, the basics: Mario Kart Tour is a free app for both iOS and Android, with in-app purchases for fun upgrades/characters and an optional $4.99 membership fee for The Gold Pass , which gives you a harder level of play (200cc for those of you in the Mario Kart know) and additional items and badges. You start off the game with one character (they gave me Bowser) and one kart, which is fine, but I really only ever want to play as Toad (the red one, please) or Peach (gotta stick to my comfort level and this is what the boys made me play as when I was a kid — watch out for my frying pan). You unlock new characters as you play more and get rubies, but I can see already that if I want to have the characters and karts of my dreams, I’m gonna have to pay.