Sugar Rush

Game= "This interactive racer was a breakout hit in American arcades when it was released in 1997. Ten sweet-styled racers drive their confectionery karts around a taffy track that weaves through the ever-changing environments of the island."

- Official description

Sugar Rush Speedway is one of the arcade games of Litwak's Arcade, featured in the 2012 animated film, Wreck-It Ralph. It is a Japanese game, based on popular kart racing titles such as the  series, though themed entirely after sweets, candies and other edible treats of the like. According to its cabinet, Sugar Rush was developed by the fictional company TobiKomi, and was plugged into the arcade in 1997. Exclusive to Litwak's console from its initial debut in 1997, to 2012, was the character King Candy.

Background
Players select one of the Sugar Rush racers, who are rotated nightly through the Random Roster race, and attempt to win a race on various racetracks located throughout the candy-filled kingdom. Like other racing games, such as Super Mario Kart, the players can pick up various power-ups that are based on sweets, examples include the Ice Cream Cannon and Sweet Seekers. Other dangers to avoid include various environmental dangers such as giant gumballs, diet cola lava and ignitable Cherry Bombs. "Ah, no! This is that candy go-kart game over by the whac-a-mole!"
 * -|Kingdom =

- Ralph

The game's setting is a sugary kingdom simply named Sugar Rush, where its characters reside. It is an island made entirely out of candy, confections, and other sugary sweets, treats, and snacks. It is ruled by Princess Vanellope von Schweetz, and homes various anthropomorphic cakes and candies, as well as the various racer avatars of the game.

History
Shortly after the game was plugged in, and before it was first played by gamers, Sugar Rush was hijacked by a rogue character named Turbo, from the game TurboTime. By reprogramming the game's codes, Turbo made himself sovereign and ruled Sugar Rush under his new identity: King Candy. King Candy would remain in power for fifteen years, until he was finally defeated by the combined efforts of Vanellope and another outsider from the game Fix-It Felix, Jr., Wreck-It Ralph. Following Turbo's defeat, Vanellope reclaimed her sovereign status, as "President Vanellope von Schweetz".

Places of Interest

 * Sugar Rush Castle: Home of the infamous King Candy and his majordomo, Sour Bill. After Vanellope is revealed to be the true ruler of Sugar Rush, she takes up residence within the castle.
 * Candy Cane Forest: A forest full of red-and-white striped peppermint trees. It is a favorite hangout spot for Vanellope. It has Laffy Taffy vines, a taffy swamp, and a Nesquik-sand pit. Double-striped canes disappear when touched.
 * Diet Cola Mountain: A soda bottle shaped volcano with a pit of boiling hot Diet Cola instead of lava. There are stalactites that sometimes fall from the roof of the volcano, causing fizzy eruptions! Diet Cola Mountain was home to Vanellope, who lived in a secret un-programmed hideaway inside the mountain (by entering through two sugar free lollipops at its base) before she moved into King Candy's former castle. There is an incomplete racetrack within the mountain, suggesting that the mountain was intended to be a bonus level, but the game creators never got around to finishing it; this is loosely confirmed by Vanellope, as she is only guessing it is true. The volcano has two major roles in the movie: it serves as the destination where Ralph teaches Vanellope to drive, and it is also where Ralph eventually goes to kill the Cy-Bugs, by smashing apart all of the stalactites and sending them into the volcano's crater creating a beam of light that instantly kills the bugs in the process.
 * Sugar Rush Speedway: The Sugar Rush Speedway is a scenic race track that traverses all the environments which make up Sugar Rush.
 * Kart Factory: The place where all the racers' karts are made. Vanellope and Ralph break into the factory to create a kart for Vanellope. The factory serves as a minigame within the game, where the player has to make their own kart in one minute. The mini game consists of three parts:
 * Mixing: The player sorts ingredients, dumping the right items into the bowl, while separating the bad ingredients (such as underwear and a fire hydrant) into a trash can.
 * Baking: The player uses an air pump to heat a large oven to the correct temperature.
 * Decorating: The player uses a gun to hit targets on decoration dispensers, adding the items to design a personal kart.


 * Junkyard: Where destroyed, worn-out, and scrapped karts are stored.

Trivia

 * The original name for Sugar Rush during production was "Candy Hollow".
 * The game was installed in 1997.
 * The Sugar Rush Speedway machine is a twin cabinet, allowing 2 players to sit down and race, in the same vein as OutRunners or Cruisin' USA.
 * The lighting team's job of rendering the candy to look realistic and delicious was one of the most difficult jobs in the entire movie.
 * Lorelay Bove, one of the visual development artists, was inspired by the colorful architecture of Antoni Gaudí on her trip to Barcelona.
 * Sugar Rush was inspired by the board game , as with various cartoon racing games like the Mario Kart series.
 * Some elements of the Mario Kart games are spoofed here: the power-ups are contained in sugar cubes, the marshmallow holding the stoplight is based on Lakitu, the Sweet Seekers parodying the Koopa shells, the final stretch being based on Rainbow Road (the final racetrack in those games), etc.
 * Unlike the other video games like Fix-it Felix Jr., Pac-Man, and Hero's Duty, Sugar Rush does not appear to have a train that transports video game characters from there to Game Central Station via the game's power cord and back. The train either was never implemented or more likely it was removed or shut down by King Candy, in order to isolate Sugar Rush and its inhabitants from any contact with Game Central Station and other characters, maintaining Candy's deceptions. It is also suggested that most characters from the other games in the arcade can not enter or choose not to enter Sugar Rush. Ralph first enters Sugar Rush by flying through in a shuttle from Hero's Duty, he then proceeds to gripe about how unfamiliar the area is. Later on Calhoun and Felix prepare to enter the game and they use Calhoun's hover cruiser to enter as the train is missing.
 * However, when King Candy first meets Wreck-It-Ralph, he orders Wynnchel and Duncan to send Ralph away "on the first train back home". Also, when Cy-Bugs invade Sugar Rush and Sergeant Calhoun orders the evacuation of the Sugar Rush residents to Game Central Station, all the residents know to escape through the game portal.
 * A couple of the "Teddy Graham"-like characters appear at the Fix-It Felix, Jr. 30th anniversary party.
 * Some concept art appear to show what the train leading to this would have probably looked like.
 * It is also worth noting that the Random Roster Race, which took place every night after the arcade closed, could have deterred most of the inhabitants from leaving the game especially the racers themselves.
 * Not counting King Candy, Rancis, Gloyd and Swizz are the only three male racer characters in the game in an otherwise mostly female cast.
 * Diet Cola Mountain could be a reference to gaming in real life; Diet Cola Mountain is supposed to be a scrapped level, but Vanellope managed to make a home out of it. In real life, people can use cheats and hacks to access elements in video games that were scrapped or left unfinished.
 * It is also based on a popular internet meme involving an explosion in a form of a fountain caused by Mentos being dropped in Diet Coke. The "Bit by Bit" feature about the making of Wreck-It Ralph, which can be found in the Blu-Ray extras (sadly not on the DVD), shows the production team actually trying this experiment themselves.
 * The CPU room's door is a classic Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) controller, which can only be opened using the "Konami Code" - Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start.
 * Sugar Rush is over by the .
 * The go-kart selection icons in the kart factory show pictures of go-karts that did not make it into the final film.
 * One of the paintings in the Fungeon shows a clown in a racecar with a facial expression similar to Turbo's.
 * Both Fix-it Felix Jr. and Sugar Rush appear to be made by TobiKomi, a fictional game company that means "to jump" or "to dive" in Japanese.
 * The sign leading to the portal between Sugar Rush and Game Central Station during the Cy-Bug attack scene reads "Parting is such sweet sorrow...", a reference to Shakespeare's tragedy, Romeo and Juliet.
 * There is a platter of chocolate truffles resembling Sugar Rush that appears in Frozen during "For the First Time in Forever" at Anna's line "I wanna stuff some chocolate in my face!"
 * The part of the ending where the game is reset to its original glory is visually reminiscent of the ending of TRON where the same thing happens to the ENCOM system. This was probably a deliberate shout-out.
 * To create the scene where Vanellope and Ralph create a kart, the animation crew visited the Ford manufacturing plant in Detroit, Michigan to watch the entire assembly of Ford trucks for inspiration.
 * Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was intended to be a character for Sugar Rush, however, he was ultimately scrapped for unknown reasons.
 * As part of Disney's marketing of the film, a version of the game can be played on their website. This is in addition to playable versions of Fix-It Felix, Jr. and Hero's Duty. TurboTime can also be played, but only via an app.
 * An official mock "trailer" for this game was uploaded to YouTube by Disney, stating the game's release date as 1997.
 * Although there is an online and iOS version of Sugar Rush, there has yet to be an exact replica of the actual game cabinet from the film in real life.
 * The online version runs on the Unity Web Player plugin, while the iOS version is a sub-game in the Wreck-It Ralph Storybook Deluxe app. The Sugar Rush game available in the multi-game app is not a racing game at all, but a platforming mini-game called Sweet Climber, wherein Ralph must bounce his way up a candy cane tree. Another game with a similar basis on the tree-climbing scene is available online, called Candy Cane Catapult.
 * There is a track themed on Sugar Rush in Disney INFINITY: 3.0 Edition called Sugar Rush Raceway.