Kirby Air Riders turns every hoverboard and star into a canvas. Underneath the chaotic racing and City Trial matches is a surprisingly flexible customization layer that lets players repaint almost every machine, bolt on accessories, and then sell those designs to others in an in‑game marketplace.
The result: GameCubes that actually look like GameCubes, Pokémon turned into stars, Amazon trucks, meme faces, and more niche anime monsters than you’d expect from a Nintendo racer.
Where custom machines live in Kirby Air Riders
Customization revolves around two menu entries:
| Menu path | Feature | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Extras → My Machine | Editor | Pick a machine you own and design a custom “skin” with colors, decals, patterns, sounds, effects, and accessories. |
| Options → Connect → Machine Market | Marketplace | Browse and buy other players’ creations, or list your own designs for sale. |
My Machine is where you do the creative work. Machine Market is where that work becomes a shared catalog, sorted into tabs like “New”, “Popular”, and “Price”. Machines you buy are cosmetic variants that sit on top of vehicles you’ve already unlocked; they don’t change stats, but they do change how your ride looks and sounds.
Which machines can be customized
Almost every rideable machine in Kirby Air Riders is customizable. The roster spans classic stars, bikes, wheeled tanks, and the legendary machines that show up in City Trial.
| Machine | Category | Notes on use and unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| Warp Star | Default air ride | One of three default machines; unlock more copies with miles or checklist goals. |
| Wagon Star | Default air ride | Cubic body; popular base for GameCube and Minecraft‑style designs. |
| Winged Star | Default air ride | Winged profile suits characters and creatures with “arms”. |
| Compact Star | Special | Starting vehicle in City Trial; not used in regular race selection. |
| Flight Warp Star | Special | Free‑run only; appears as a separate option when time‑trialling courses. |
| Shadow Star, Slick Star, Hop Star, Paper Star, Jet Star, etc. | Air ride / City Trial | Unlocked by buying them with miles or completing hidden checklist objectives. |
| Wheelie Bike, Wheelie Scooter, Rex Wheelie | Bike machines | Handle differently from stars; still fully paintable and accessory‑ready. |
| Tank Star, Bull Tank, Battle Chariot, Chariot | Heavy machines | Chunkier silhouettes that lend themselves to vehicle or character “box” designs. |
| Rocket Star, Turbo Star, Swerve Star, Formula Star | Speed‑focused | Longer bodies that work well for ship, sword, or racer homages. |
| Dragoon, Hydra | Legendary | Available from the start in City Trial, usable in Free Run once specific City Trial challenges are cleared. |
| Gigantes, Leo | New legendary | Pieces start spawning in City Trial after meeting Road Trip story milestones; Gigantes stays City‑Trial‑only. |
Machines are unlocked in two ways: buying them in the Miles Shop with the “miles” currency you earn from play, or triggering specific challenges listed on the checklists for Air Ride, Top Ride, City Trial, and Road Trip. Either route gives you a usable machine. If you want to build multiple custom variants of the same base machine, you’ll need extra copies, which means more miles or more checklist boxes.
How the My Machine editor works
The editor is built around layering simple elements on top of the machine’s 3D shell. It has a clear constraint: you only get a small number of decals per machine (players report a limit of 20), but you can scale, stretch, recolor, and mirror these shapes to build surprisingly intricate designs.
| Element | What it controls | Typical use in community designs |
|---|---|---|
| Base color / patterns | Overall paint and textures on the machine body | Solid fills for consoles (purple GameCube Wagon Star), paper textures for flat “paper” characters. |
| Decals (shapes) | Flat shapes layered on surfaces | Eyes, mouths, outlines, gamepad ports, D‑pads, clothing details, logos, text. |
| Accessories | 3D add‑ons like wings, lamps, bouquets, dice | Chandelure “candles”, Monokuma wings, bouquet‑topped party boxes, dice blocks for Wagon Star. |
| Effects | Visual trails and particles | Water splashes for Kyogre‑inspired builds, flame bursts for fire or rocket motifs. |
| Sounds | Engine and boost audio | Subtle personalization; less visible in screenshots but part of the identity. |
Navigation is simple: choose a machine, then cycle through parts of the shell and apply layers. Many shapes support mirroring; for example, using the GameCube controller ports or Mario star eyes is easier when you can place one shape and mirror it to the opposite side rather than aligning both manually.
Because the toolset is deliberately basic, a lot of the artistry comes from how shapes overlap. Bleeding eyes on a 0² star, Sonic’s spikes built from layered triangles, or Kirby Café omurice covers built from simple rounded rectangles are all the result of careful stacking and color choice rather than bespoke tools.
Machine Market and how to buy custom designs
The Machine Market is a global showroom for designs. Every custom machine listed by players shows up here with a thumbnail, price in coins, and basic info. Coins are a separate currency from miles; you earn them by racing and playing the game normally.
| Market tab | What you see | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| New | Freshly listed machines across all types | Fastest way to watch trends emerge and catch designs before they spike in price. |
| Popular | High‑selling, widely purchased designs | Where the recognizable builds live: Pokémon rows, GameCube Wagon Stars, Minecraft cubes, meme stars. |
| Price | Machines sorted by cost | Highlights the 300,000‑coin outliers at the top and cheaper “bargain” designs at the bottom. |
| Friends | Machines listed by your friends | Useful if you want to share ID codes privately and keep trading within a known group. |
You can also filter by machine type, so if you only care about Warp Star skins or Wagon Star boxes, the clutter drops quickly. There’s an ID search that lets you punch in a specific machine code to jump straight to that design, but the current purchase UI does not always surface IDs prominently. Players who discover something they can’t yet afford risk losing track of it unless they note the ID or rely on filters later.
Every purchase consumes coins and grants you that skin for the relevant base machine, assuming you own the underlying vehicle. If you don’t have the machine unlocked yet, you’ll need to grab it from the Miles Shop or checklist first before you can equip the skin.
Creative trends: what people are actually building
Given enough triangles and circles, racing fans will reassemble the rest of pop culture. Within days, several rough categories emerged.
Homages to Nintendo hardware
One of the most natural fits is turning machines into Nintendo consoles:
- GameCube Wagon Stars use the cube‑shaped chassis as a literal case: purple base paint, front‑facing controller ports, memory card slot lines, and even a suggested Game Boy Player at the bottom where creators add a black “layer.”
- Game Boy Warp Stars get completely desaturated, then rebuilt as a handheld: a gray or white body, green “screen” rectangle, stylized D‑pad and A/B buttons, and tiny Select/Start decals. Some designs drop a Kirby decal into the middle of the screen for extra character.
- “Free star” and “steer star” recreations mirror shapes from the original GameCube Kirby Air Ride’s Top Ride mode, using the modern warp star silhouette to echo that classic UI.
These builds show off how much the underlying machine shape matters. Wagon Star’s geometry lends itself to boxy electronics and Minecraft cubes, while flatter stars like Paper Star fit 2D characters and logos viewed from above.
Pokémon, anime, and game characters on stars
A huge slice of the Machine Market is effectively a fan art gallery:
- Pokémon are everywhere: Kyogre on Vampire Star with water effects and fin shapes; alternate Kyogre takes on Winged Star; Latios and Latias on Formula Star and Hop Star; Porygon2 smoothed over with reflective textures; Gengar on Shadow Star; Stunfisk flattened on Vampire Star; Chandelure built around lamp accessories; Registeel, Piplup, Mega Rayquaza jets, and more.
- Kirby bosses and allies get their own tributes: multiple 0² (Zero Two) machines with bleeding eyes and halos; Starman rendered in metallic finishes; Gooey‑like “slime stars” with simple, expressive faces.
- Other games and anime show up through silhouettes and colors: Monokuma using one angel wing and one bat wing for asymmetry; Hatsune Miku layered into a Warp Star with accessory “skirt” panels; Kamen Rider‑style bikes; Yu‑Gi‑Oh! references like the Millennium Puzzle built out of the Swar machine; Madoka Magica monsters and assorted mecha and mascots.
The most striking builds exploit motion. Aegislash, for example, uses Transform Star’s dual forms so that in one state it resembles the shield form, and when it transforms, the geometry lines up into its blade form, with shield and arms repositioned underneath. That requires designing both states at once, since the editor only lets you skin the machine as a single object.
Vehicles, brands, and internet jokes
Not every machine is a character; some lean into object humor or brand parody:
- Amazon delivery truck Wagon Stars and generic cargo boxes use the cubic body plus decal logos to turn Kirby’s ride into a parcel.
- Dice block Tank or Wagon Stars stack die accessories, and number pips to resemble Mario Party blocks.
- Buzz Lightyear‑styled frames remix Formula Star with striped armor plating and color blocking that sells the space ranger suit.
- Soft drink parodies like “Pepsi/Beepus” Warp Stars build out blue‑white stripes and surprisingly legible text using layered rectangles.
- Meme and emoji faces from Steam’s classic happy icon to “🥺 star” expressions show up as simple but instantly readable faces drawn onto Warp and Vampire Stars.
- SpongeBob universe nods lean on Patrick silhouettes and bikini gags. Some of the more extreme micro‑bikini designs have already been removed, but the general impulse hasn’t gone away.
Because the tools allow readable text with enough patience, there’s a constant tension between clever lettering and potential moderation headaches. Nintendo has already reacted to some borderline content in the Machine Market, scrubbing the most explicit uploads, but many suggestive designs still skate just under the line.
How machine stats and character weight interact with cosmetics
Custom machines don’t change a vehicle’s base behavior, but it’s still useful to understand how machines and riders interact when choosing what to decorate.
The game classifies riders by weight. Heavier characters (like King Dedede) add bonuses to a machine’s HP, top speed, and flight. Lighter characters (like Kirby) boost stats such as boost strength, charge rate, turning, grip, and lift. That means a Turbo Star under a heavy rider feels very different from the same machine under a light one, even if the skin is identical.
Since all of the machines listed earlier are fully customizable, you’re free to pair aesthetics with performance: a Latios Formula Star for high‑speed play, a Minecraft Wagon Star for sillier lobbies, or a bulked‑out tank for battle‑focused Stadiums. The only place cosmetics collide with function is legendary machines in City Trial, where you still have to find parts mid‑match before you can ride them at all.
Design strategies borrowed from standout builds
Looking at the most popular creations, a few patterns emerge that are worth copying if you want your own designs to hold up in the Machine Market.
- Pick the right base machine. If you’re aiming for a cube (GameCube, Minecraft block, shipping box), start with Wagon Star. For round creatures (Sonic, Kirby, Monokuma face), Warp Star or Vampire Star work better. For long ships or weapons, Formula Star, Flight Warp Star, or Transform Star are stronger canvases.
- Use minimalism when detail is expensive. With limited decal slots, builders lean on a few bold shapes: a simple shy guy mask, a flat Pikachu face, or a Starman silhouette often reads better at racing speed than hyper‑detailed art crammed into the same constraints.
- Exploit accessories for 3D cues. Lamp posts turn into Chandelure’s arms; bouquets become party hats; wings suggest capes or asymmetrical armor. Accessories are separate from decals, so they don’t eat into your 2D shape budget.
- Think in motion. Some of the most impressive work, like Aegislash or Sonic on a circular base, only fully “clicks” when seen rotating or transforming. Use trailing effects and transformation states to sell the idea, not just the static thumbnail.
- Layer for texture, not just color. Star‑shaped patterns under Starmie builds, metal textures on Starman, or paper textures on Paper Mario‑inspired stars give depth that single‑color fills can’t match.
The customization system in Kirby Air Riders is deliberately narrow: no freehand drawing, no custom image uploads, and a strict decal cap. That hasn’t slowed players down. Between My Machine and the Machine Market, almost every online lobby now doubles as an art show, and the meta isn’t just which machine is fastest on Galactic Nova—it’s whether you’re piloting a purple GameCube, a Legendary Pokémon, or a deeply cursed Chef Kawasaki board while you do it.
