Hello all,
Lots of things are happening on the game (wiimote support, new kart models, new tracks, new particle effects, and a new tutorial). Here’s a link to our moddb news item. I thought it better than reformatting everything and the screenshots are visible by default. Enjoy!
Download the latest stable version of the game for free and try it yourself
supertuxkart.sourceforge.net/Downloads
First, after 12 years of development, SuperTuxKart is a candidate for the March project of the month at Sourceforge. This is a huge honor and a significant boost for the project, so please vote for us here.
Second, last month we were featured in Microsoft’s IllumiRoom demo alongside Red Eclipse (another FOSS game) and Halo. For those who are interested, you can find the video in the last post. It’s the second time STK has been featured in an unexpected place. The game has previously appeared in an episode of the show Friday Night Lights. The episode was critical of drug use and videogames, so downloads for the game probably didn’t go up. I am not entirely sure why they chose a kart racer game over, let’s say, postal 3, but licensing issues are likely to have played a prominent role in their decision. STK’s permissive licenses mean, companies don’t need to contact us before using it in media.
Development news
To try these new features out by compiling the latest source code from sourceforge page. Links are located at the bottom of the page.
Bubblegum:
The Bubble gum powerup currently is dropped by a player to create a track obstacle. While not finalized, there is a plan to make it more useful by including an additional phase. This new phase would take place when the player first activates the gum. A pink bubble gum would expand into a force-field, protecting the player from enemy attacks for 15 seconds. If the player is hit by a weapon while the force-field is up, the shield is destroyed instead of the player taking damage. The exploding shield would send pieces of bubble gum shrapnel and hit players within a certain proximity, blinding them for a couple seconds. The explosion will also leave a larger smear on the ground, which if hit, will cause a moderate decrease in a player’s speed.
The second phase happens if the fifteen seconds pass without the shield being destroyed. It shrinks back down and the player can then drop it on the ground like in the current version of the game.
The new icon
Planetarium:
This is a level Samuncle is currently working on.
Konqi’s new kart:
Here’s what will likely be the final version of Konqi’s new kart. It now includes pedals and a steering wheel. It’s looking good.
New Peripheral Support: Wiimote
Funto is working on adding wiimote support via the open source library “wiiuse” https://github.com/rpavlik/wiiuse. After 3 years it’s finally coming together. Wiimotes now work on Linux and Windows (if you compile from the latest svn). It is not working on OS X yet, but Auria is buying a wiimote to try to get it working on her Mac. There are also some issues with tuning and steering that need to be worked out and we have not integrated support for motionplus, because only the external version was working. So wiimotes with motionplus built in will not work (older models will). We may add the motionplus functionality in later and we always appreciate help.
Game Tutorial:
Auria is developing a gameplay tutorials covering the core gameplay elements for new players. The tutorial takes place on a modified version of the track “Hacienda” and the player takes a single lap around the track. During the lap the game pauses periodically to explains things like how to control the kart, obtaining and using weapons and powerups, how to use nitro boosters and the skidding feature.
New WIP Game Mode: Soccer
Soccer mode is one of our developer funto’s, pet projects. It’s a multiplayer game mode where two teams fight to push an oversized soccer ball into the opposing team’s goal. There is a test level derived from the Stadium arena. Currently, obstacles have been removed, but map makers could always re-add them. It’s WIP, and the scoring system is not currently implemented and the system for making team’s is still a WIP.
Other enhancements:
You can test all these features out today by downloading and compiling the latest trunk of the SVN, located at: http://supertuxkart.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/supertuxkart/main/
How to compile from from source:
Looks great. It’s running on the Bge I pressume.
looks good, but is it bge?
No, when STK switched from its own custom engine (around 2007/2008) BGE wasn’t nearly as good as it is today. At the time, it was decided to use Irrlicht 3d. However, all the art assets are made in blender including the tracks using custom scripts. It’s the one step art asset pipeline for our game, meaning that STK art assets can be used easily in BGE projects. The art assets are open source, so as long as you follow the license details, feel free to use them.
Someone could make BGE version of STK if they were so inclined.
Even if it is not BGE we accepted game demos in the past if the asset was done in Blender. Please mention it is not BGE at the top post. These forums are meant to present BGE games. So it should be clear it is not a BGE game.
I’m sure there you are welcome at the irrlicht forums.