SuperTuxKart

SuperTuxKart
Karts. Nitro. Action!
Protagonist(s): Tux the Penguin Genre(s): Kart-racing Platform(s): Android iOS (in beta) Microsoft Windows MacOS Linux Nintendo Switch (homebrew) Release: August 6th, 2007 Engine: Irrlicht Engine Antartica Developer(s): STK Development Team Publisher(s): STK Development Team Country: France

SuperTuxKart is a 2007 3D open-source kart-racing game that started as a fork of TuxKart, and was initially developed by Steve & Oliver Baker. Development on the game began in April 2000 and ended in March of 2004, and was later conducted by other developers in 2006, and later became the game that we know today. The first version of the game was released on August 6, 2007. The game is under active development by its community.

Development

SuperTuxKart started as a fork of TuxKart, and was was Steve Baker's second major game, with the first one being Tuxedo T. Penguin: A Quest for Herring, and was also the first game he created with his son, Oliver Baker. The latter designed some of the tracks, with one of them being a recreation of his fifth-grade math class, which he and Steve created for a school project presentation, and wanted to surprise the class with a detailed 3D model of the classroom it was being presented in. After the presentation, they considered the project to be completed.

In June 2004, the "Game of the Month" team of the Linux Game Tome decided to improve SuperTuxKart. However, this lead to many disagreements on the project, and the state of the game was left as it was. While there were some graphical improvements made, the game itself was very unstable, making it unplayable at best. Nobody worked on the game for several years, that is, until in 2006, someone named Joerg Henrichs (a.k.a "Hiker") picked up the game, fixed all of the bugs and performance issues without any involvement of the people from the Game of the Month project, with the help of "Coz". Finally, the game was released on August 6, 2007, and is now known as the game we know today.

Gameplay

SuperTuxKart is a kart-racing game that takes several elements from the Mario Kart games, but also has some distinct elements, such as collecting and using cans of nitro. The game features open-source mascots from various open-source projects, such as Tux the Penguin (the mascot of Linux) as the main protagonist, and the Mozilla Thunderbird plays the referee, where he flags the start of races, and as well as saves racers if they drive off the course, much like Lakitu in Mario Kart 8.

Unlike Mario Kart, the game has a Story Mode, similar to Crash Team Racing, where Tux must save Gnu, the leader of the mascot kingdom from being eaten by Nolok by defeating the latter in a race at his lair, Fort Magma.

Why It Rocks

1. The concept of making a kart-racing game that features open-source mascots is a pretty neat idea, and is executed very well here.
2. Great-looking graphics and visuals that improve after every update, and some tracks, such as Black Forest, look very beautiful.
3. Starting in version 0.9, the controls and physics have drastically improved over the ones from previous versions (such as 0.8.X) as turning is less sharper, and the karts are far less bouncier.
4. You can download more karts/tracks/arenas in-game in order to get more karts/tracks/arenas that are entirely custom-made by the community, and as well as get back one of the three aforementioned things that were originally scrapped from the game in previous versions.
5. Despite the small community size, the game has a pretty good amount of mod support, as you can download mods for the game from sites such as GameBanana and place them in the game's files.
6. Absolutely amazing soundtrack that is (mostly) original, such as the main menu theme, which is an absolute banger to listen to.
7. Unlike Mario Kart, the game has a story mode, much like the aforementioned Crash Team Racing, where Gnu, the leader of the mascot kingdom gets kidnapped by Nolok, the main villain of the game. In order to free Gnu, Tux must defeat Nolok in a race at his lair, otherwise, the latter will eat Gnu for supper.
8. If you don't want to play the Story Mode, you can cheat by editing a .config file in the game's files, that way, all of the characters, tracks, and the SuperTux difficulty will all be unlocked.
9. The online mode of the game supports both WAN and LAN multiplayer networks. That way, you can play multiplayer with your friends without having to play on the same computer by making a private room.
10. Some of the items are original, and aren't direct clones of the ones from the Mario Kart games, such as:
    • The Bubblegum: Acts as a temporary force field for the player until it is either hit by another item or pops after a certain amount of time. It can also be used backwards in order to slow down other racers.
    • The Fly Swatter: Self-explanatory. It swats a racer once it is close enough to them, causing them to slow down.
    • The Basketball: Although it acts very similar to the infamous Blue/Spiny Shell from the Mario Kart series, unlike the latter item, it can't hit the player if they have a force field, and it can also be popped if you use an item backwards on it, such as a plunger or a bowling ball.
11. Some of the modes are original, too, such as:
    • Follow the Leader (despite not being good): Keep up with the leader, but don't go ahead of them. The remaining racer to not get eliminated wins.
    • Egg Hunt: Explore tracks in order to find all of the hidden eggs.
    • Soccer: Push the ball into the opposite goal in order to score points.
12. The redesigns of some of the characters in version 1.3 look very good, (except for Adiumy) and actually look better than their previous designs.
13. Version 1.3 also introduces a new arena and character, and as well as improved graphics and visuals.
14. You can still download older versions of the game from SourceForge.
15. The game was even greenlit on Steam in March 2017. However, as of July of 2022, the Steam port has yet to see the light of day.

Bad Qualities

1. Starting in version 1.3, (the latest version of the game) for some reason, Gnu is unlocked from the start, which completely contradicts the Story Mode, where Gnu gets kidnapped by Nolok, (as stated above) and the only way you could unlock the former (and as well as the latter) was by beating the story mode.
2. Some of the characters, such as the PHP Elephant and Beagle, were scrapped from the Standard roster starting in version 0.9.3. However, they are still available to download as add-on karts, and the reason why they were removed was because their meshes were outdated and didn’t fit with the later versions of the game.
3. The Follow the Leader gamemode is known for being the worst gamemode in the entire game, as you drive about 12-15% faster than the AI, and even the leader can use items, and depending on the difficulty, you can get backtracked by an item the leader uses and get sent all the way back to last place and get eliminated, due to the AI constantly staying very close to the Leader.
4. The game can have issues running on computers with an NVIDIA graphics card.

Reception

In 2007, Full Circle Magazine cited SuperTuxKart as one of the top five racing games available on Linux, describing it as the game you can try if you're "tired of realistic driving". Linux Journal also praised the game, saying that the courses in SuperTuxKart are fun, colorful, and imaginative, and that if you played the original game, TuxKart, you'll also be impressed by the new and hugely improved STK. The game received an honorable mention by APC Mag for their Top Five Free Games list in 2008. TechRadar cited it as one of the best games to put on Linux. OMG! Ubuntu! cited SuperTuxKart as "The best racing game to not feature Mario, Toad, or Diddy Kong".

Trivia

• There are some unused audio files for Tux that can be found in the game’s files which imply that the game was originally going to have voice acting, but they were never used and were cut early from development, and the only character to actually have voice acting as of v0.8 is Nolok.
• Nolok is also the only character in the game to not be based on an open-source mascot.