SuperTuxKart

Hi everyone,unfortunately there was a major problem with the first Windows installer posted on our website : it included a version of STK that did not include all of the 0.7.1 commits. So if you are on Windows and you downloaded 0.7.1, please download again - the new package is called 0.7.1a.Sorry for the inconvenience

This release features the following improvements over version 0.7 : Particle (smoke, splash, fire) and weather effects New Fort Magma by Samuncle, new Shiny Suburbs track by Horace New Beagle kart by wolter, new Emule kart by Kinsu Added internet ... [More] news Support for live language switch Added optional minimal race UI Temporary invincibility after being hit Added support for full-screen anti-aliasing Clearer multiplayer setup Renamed many tracks to nicer names Basic level-of-detail (LOD) support Debug features for track makers Update to bullet 2.77 Replace more sounds to be DFSG-compliant Fixed character names that contain non-ASCII characters Full RTL (right to left) support Various other tweaks done and glitches fixed Thanks to everyone who made this release possible! Please head over to our forums for feedbackJoerg and Auria (April 15, 2011) [Less]

After a few bug reports it was revealed that there was an error in the Windows installer of SuperTuxKart 0.7.1 Release Candidate 1. A new installer has been uploaded to deal with the problem. Other operating systems should not be affected.

SuperTuxKart 0.7.1 Release Candidate 1 is now available for download at https://sourceforge.net/projects/supertuxkart/files/SuperTuxKart/0.7.1/This release features the following improvements over version 0.7 :Particle  (smoke, splash, fire) and ... [More] weather effectsNew Fort Magma by Samuncle, new Shiny Suburbs track by HoraceRenamed many tracks to nicer namesAdded internet newsAdded optional minimal race UIAdded support for full-screen anti-aliasingSupport for live language switchClearer multiplayer setupBasic level-of-detail (LOD) supportDebug features for track makersTemporary invincibility after being hitReplace more sounds to be DFSG-compliantNew Beagle kart by wolterhFixed character names that contain non-ASCII charactersFull RTL (right to left) supportVarious other tweaks done and glitches fixedNote that all translators should now head over to Launchpad and make sure all translations are as complete as possible!Thanks to everyone who made this release possible!Joerg and Auria [Less]

With the upcoming 0.7.1 release so near comes a huge and unexpected surprise: SuperTuxKart will soon be ported to work entirely in non-graphics mode, allowing it to be run without any graphical environment. The reasons our project leader hiker gave ... [More] , are:...it will allow SuperTuxKart to run even on the weakest of computers, tablets and other mobile devices, and make testing even easier. In the future, we may consider porting it to a web interface, but that will most likely be after ver. 1.0 (patches welcome ;) ).Here's a work-in-progress screenshot of the non-graphics port, aptly codenamed "ASCII Kart".As you might (or might not) have noticed, this is a screenshot of Tux in 'Tux Tollway' with 19 AI opponents. I suffered no graphics slowdowns, even with all effects enabled, and this goes to prove how efficient ASCII Kart is. There are still some issues; namely rank, lap, time and map displays needs to be shown more clearly, but as the port progresses these problems will be addressed.Can't wait to test it on my cheapo netbook! :D [Less]

Time for another update, and since I didn't mention all the details last time, I can tout a few of them as new this time. Clever, don't you think? ;)Track updatesThere's a new water splash effect, so instead of bouncing on water you sink a bit ... [More] through, see a nice particle effect and hear a splash sound. In XR591, there's a special acid splash instead. :)Thunder and lightning has been added to 'Around the Lighthouse', and Fort Magma has new music made by Kalsan. Thanks!A bunch of the tracks have gotten new names. 'Farm' is now called 'Bovine Barnyard', 'City' was renamed to 'Shiny Suburbs', 'Canyon' = 'Coyote Canyon', and 'Snow Mountain' is now 'Northern Resort' - easier to differentiate from 'Snow Peak'. Love them, loathe them, or do you have other suggestions? You're welcome to share your thoughts.Also, the screenshots for the tracks have been updated, with a more over-view style instead of racing perspective.Graphics changesThe tabs in 'Options' screen have been changed to an "accordion" layout, making space for the new UI tab where you can change theme and toggle "Show FPS" on or off.And the graphics option have a nice tooltip showing what you do when changing the level in the effect slider. New stuff also include anti-aliasing and vsync (vertical sync) support.Blender 2.5 is said to come out soon, so work has started on making the export scripts for STK work in 2.5. This is not a trivial move, and it might take some time, but it's being worked on now, which is good. LOD support has been added to SuperTuxKart, so track makers should take that into consideration since it will allow the game to run better on lower-end hardware, e.g. netbooks. LOD (level of detail) is already in use for karts, so only karts being close to you is animated, which should save some graphics power.Furthermore, debug features for artists will also be featured in release builds from now on, so you won't have to get the latest SVN version in order to debug your track. However, it's not enabled by default, so you'll have to edit your STK config file in order to use the features.Gameplay changesIf you've ever been hit three, four or even five times in a row, you might be glad to hear that after a hit, while the stars are swirling around your head cakes won't aim at you, nor will bowling balls explode on you anymore. You're still not invincible from area effect, so if you are close to another kart you might be affected by it being shot.The minimal race GUI, which I touted last blog post, seems to be more likely not to become the default, at least not for 0.7.1. Which is a shame in my opinion, since the current GUI is way crowded, and minimal race GUI contains just the info you need. People reacted quite strongly against it, which was a bit surprising considering they hadn't even tried it yet. It has received larger map icons and player highlighting, which makes the map easier to use:Disclaimer: this view is solely my own and does not represent the STK team in any way.But for now, your beloved bloat is safe. ;)Some inspiration from this was taken for multiplayer view, so there are no action messages in multiplayer anymore. They simply take up too much space and distracts the view. Imagine playing 3- or 4-player split-screen with all those messages coming in all the time.Engine sounds and a few other sounds now takes kart amount into play, which makes multiplayer more enjoyable since the engine noise isn't doubled as before. The engine sounds themselves have also been replaced with better licensed ones, and this applies to a few other sounds as well. We're still hunting for a bowling roll and bowling hit sound with better licensing, so we some day can become fully DFSG-compliant.Other misc changes lately include the move to Trac for bug reports, conversion of a bunch of textures to jpeg to save space, and the move from gettext to tinygettext.And that's that. If I have forgotten anything noteworthy, well, drop me a note. ;) [Less]

My usual belated blog post is here, and since so much has been happening since 0.7, I'll just have to summarize a bit and possibly spread the news over a couple of posts instead of just throw them all in this one. But I'm pretty confident you'll be ... [More] happy with the contents. :)First we'll cover the big news: 'City' is back, better than ever before, 'Fort Magma ' has been totally remade, and oh! Did I mention they look gorgeous?New 'City' and 'Fort Magma'Courtesy of horaceCourtesy of samuncleWoah, slow down a bit! What's all this? New nitro bar and zipper icon? And more spicy looking nitro? And what's that kart in 'Fort Magma'? Is it new?To all of that I have to answer: yes, yes and yes! The kart is called 'Beagle', and it's a brand new one made by wolterh.Now you might want to ask where the kart rank display, speedometer and action messages went. They went the way of the dodo. Or, to put it more elegantly: in an effort to minimize UI clutter and better the racing experience, these elements were removed. As of now, it's still not the default look, but it is quite likely to become so in the near future. We would love some feedback on this, as it's always risky to remove stuff people are accustomed to, and this might very well become at least somewhat configurable. But we will listen to any praise/criticism and try to balance this well for the upcoming 0.7.1 release.So, is there any more graphical goodness to come in 0.7.1? Well, take a look:And if you're afraid that your computer can't handle the extra load, you will find a new slider in the graphics options that'll hopefully make STK still run perfectly well. You can now even have kart animations only for the human players, thus removing the overhead of animating all the AI karts in sight.Separate entry for multiplayer in the menuThat's right; after having numerous people asking for help in regards to setting up multiplayer, Auria went back to the drawing board and put forward a more clear and easy comprehensible solution. And maybe this menu entry could be used for more in the future? ;)You may have noticed the new bottom 'panel'. As of now, you can change language in-game at runtime. Pretty handy, especially when taking screenshots. ;)Also, the loading notice has a connection to the new feature of installing addons in-game. While hiker has been working quite a lot with this, and certainly deserves more than a few lines, I'll keep it short and simple for this time and cover it more later. The thing is; we need your help.We are looking for a server side programmer capable of PHP, generic web design and compilation of STK (we'll provide help with this if needed). The game side of things is mostly in place, but the server side will need a bit of work, so if you have the aforementioned qualities we would really like to hear from you. You'll have to cooperate either through the mailing list (preferred), and/or IRC. Installing addons in-game might be delayed until 0.7.2 or later, depending on how quickly we can get someone with the necessary skills and time to help.That's it for this time - there have been more changes, but I'll try to fit them in another post instead of making this one a mile long. Take care, and let us hear from you regarding the latest changes - using the forums is a great way to do it as we can keep the discussions organized. [Less]

With the major release of SuperTuxKart 0.7, which had been worked on for about a year and a half with lots of rewrites, refactoring and new features, we all got quite excited to see how it would be received by the public. Here's a few user responses ... [More] on this blog:Chon said...Great work! It looks amazing and my kids are playing it non-stop.Anonymous said...I've just installed STK on Ubuntu. You did an awesome job. The game has improved a lot - especially the graphics. Now there's a game to show off on Linux. The challenges are great - not easy to solve, but not too tricky to get annoyed. I've been following the blog for about a year. Now I received a wonderful Chrismas present. You guys rock!Charlie said...It's incredible how far SuperTuxKart has come since being the Game of the Month project. Keep up the good work and thanks for all the effort you guys put into it!Anonymous said...Frickin' amazing! I was initially thinking "meh, Linux games are nothing to shake a stick at, and this has only semi-decent graphics judging by the intro screen." Then I started to play it, and I realized that it has some /really/ fun gameplay. As of 0.6.13, I'm impressed by the physics, the not-too-serious gameplay, the creativity of question mark boxes and kart interactions, intelligence and semi-realism of the computer-AI, and (sad as it is that I have to say) the stability. Great game!Thank you *so* much for putting some clearly quality effort into this sucker.Okay, I admit it; I took some of the most positive replies I could find, but apart from some bugs, the release was very well recieved, especially by recurring STK players.The release was also covered by many other news sources, including our friends over at the FreeGamer blog. Linux Gamecast quickly made a review of RC1, while the bulk of traffic we got was from increasingly well-known OMG! Ubuntu blog and its sister site, Ubuntugamer.I can't remember all the various sites spreading the word, but to all of you: thanks a lot! :)Despite some gamepad issues, some bugs and some well-deserved critic, I think we can call SuperTuxKart 0.7 a success. But there's still lots to do, so if you want and are able to help us make this game better, please contact us. We don't bite. ;) [Less]

After over a year of work, dozens upon dozens of new and fixed bugs, over 3000 commits, a lot of work from artists, restless testing from our faithful followers, and translations from contributors all over the world, we are thrilled to offer you ... [More] SuperTuxKart 0.7 just in time for Christmas! This release is using irrlicht for graphics, and features: new GUI kart and track animations new and improved tracks, karts, and items shortcut/alternative way support for tracks Asian fonts many many bugfixes. Enjoy! Joerg and AuriaP.S: A gameplay video is in the making, and should hopefully be available soonish. [Less]

We have just uploaded a second release candidate. Major changes include : Asian fonts are now included in the package. Several memory leaks have been fixed (which had caused problems with music and sound effects) Some tracks were improved to ... [More] disable unintentional shortcuts and incorrect rescues. Some minor bug fixes. We also updated the translations, but not all translations are complete yet. We encourage all translators to complete their translations, as the strings are now frozen. Testing and feedback welcome!Cheers, Joerg and AuriaWell you know what to do: test it and comment on it like if it was the real deal - 0.7 is coming really soon now, possibly within the next week or so! And we need your help to find the odd little bits here and there that needs to be fixed. Please report your findings in STK´s bug tracker, and mark them as high priority if it´s a crash or similar show-stoppers. This way, our dear developers will ensure that it gets prioritized and hopefully fixed before 0.7. Keep in mind that they need as many details as possible, so please include in your report system info, where it happened, if it´s reproducible, and backtrace if you have one.Let´s help make 0.7 rock solid! :) [Less]