SuperTuxKart 0.8 released

[mastablasta]

Hey, glad you like it! We're interested in feedback, especially regarding difficulty of the challenges.

well i had some time to try it out on windows XP (haven't got the time to install it on the linux maschine). so far it's great. looking better it seems than previous one. a few chalenges seem a bit frustrating, but managable. well they are challenging as they should be. so far i couldn't play many of them. but the starting ones are fun and challenging. mostly i played easy and medium. hard difficulty i failed but it was my fault i am confident i can make it. it was also a bit hard to drive at peak performance while holding a toddler that was pressing keys and drivign his car over the keyboard...


so far i got 45 points together. i think you should get more points for winning the race. i think it will take a lot of grinding to only unlock the tracks.

i wonder if it would be better to select difficulty on start of the story mode. and progress faster through tracks as you race and achieve the goals & points.

my favourite kart game is super kart made for dos. and i kind of miss the pitstop. it adds a bit of strategy to game.

[zombifier25]

well i had some time to try it out on windows XP (haven't got the time to install it on the linux maschine). so far it's great. looking better it seems than previous one. a few chalenges seem a bit frustrating, but managable. well they are challenging as they should be. so far i couldn't play many of them. but the starting ones are fun and challenging. mostly i played easy and medium. hard difficulty i failed but it was my fault i am confident i can make it. it was also a bit hard to drive at peak performance while holding a toddler that was pressing keys and drivign his car over the keyboard...


so far i got 45 points together. i think you should get more points for winning the race. i think it will take a lot of grinding to only unlock the tracks.

i wonder if it would be better to select difficulty on start of the story mode. and progress faster through tracks as you race and achieve the goals & points.

my favourite kart game is super kart made for dos. and i kind of miss the pitstop. it adds a bit of strategy to game.

I don't know if this is a bug or a feature, but if you get the gold trophy, you automatically get the other trophies. That will definitely speed things up.


Also, a heads up for everyone experiencing GetDeb blue times, SuperTuxKart 0.8 has just landed in the backports repos for Precise and Quantal, so enable the backports repo in Software Sources and grab 'em while they're hot!

[thnewguy]

I tried the new release and it feels pretty good so far. The challenges I'm finding pretty easy thus far. I almost feel as though there should be an additional level of difficulty (beginner, intermidate, expert and ... master?). A lot of the races I can win on expert mode without the use of nitro or special items. Perhaps a more aggressive mode where the AI players try to gather more nitro and use it would add a level of challenge to the game.

[LillyDragon]

I don't know if I could go against more brutal AI. It was crazy enough trying to stay in the lead on Expert in the story mode. XD Although it would put SuperTuxKart a huge notch above other wacky racers, like Mario Kart, whose AI have always been competent at best. =P

Also, don't know if this thread is open for suggestions on the game itself, but would it be easy to implement an option to disable boosting from skids? While I know you can just as easily not map a skid button to everyone's controllers, it would be an interesting option for parents so the whole family can just focus on a good, clean game without the pressure of competitive racing, or completely handicapping the speed demon(s) in the bunch.

Sounds kinda silly, but it always annoyed my parents whenever I would powerslide like crazy on Mario Kart for an extra boost around the corner, giving me and my sis an edge they couldn't keep up with. I'd keep telling them it was an effortless thing to do, but they were convinced it was "cheating". Finally had enough of it around Mario Kart Wii and haven't played with them since. XD What? My sis and I were brutal on the track, we fought dirty and loved it! It's impossible not to do. > : D

Hey, glad you like it! We're interested in feedback, especially regarding difficulty of the challenges. As for the small graphics corruption, I have no idea. Usually we blame drivers if there are graphics problems which can't be reproduced on cards from other graphics vendors.
Unfortunately, graphics drivers are a recurring source of bug reports; maybe in the future we'll be able to autodetect better what they support (though some drivers report being able to handle things that they don't, so it's a messy situation). Ah well, glad that it wasn't persistent in your case.

Wow, that's mostly out of your hands there. XD And it's such a minor problem I'm surprised that was the worst bug I've encountered while playing the entire game. It wasn't even a lot of corruption either, just some missing lines here and there!

[Arthur_D]

I don't know if this is a bug or a feature, but if you get the gold trophy, you automatically get the other trophies. That will definitely speed things up.

Yeah, that's a feature. So mastablasta, there's less grinding involved if you manage to do the gold trophies, and somewhat more with silver, and most with bronze. There's got to be an incentive to do the harder ones.

As for a harder AI; yes this is something we've discussed - possibly only for normal races though (what this probably would mean is that they use skidding as much as they can all the time, while currently Expert AI will use less skidding if in front and more skidding if behind). Personally I'd like to tweak some of the Expert challenges to be a tad harder (not AI-wise, but time-wise or other things), but I'm not sure if I can convince the others on the team.

Also, don't know if this thread is open for suggestions on the game itself, but would it be easy to implement an option to disable boosting from skids? While I know you can just as easily not map a skid button to everyone's controllers, it would be an interesting option for parents so the whole family can just focus on a good, clean game without the pressure of competitive racing, or completely handicapping the speed demon(s) in the bunch.

Sure, but keep in mind that it's only me replying to the best of my knowledge here; we have our own forum if you want to reach the project leaders and the rest of the community.

The Easy AI will not use skidding at all. For humans, as you say there is the option of just collectively agreeing on not to use it, but feel free to suggest a special option in our forum: http://forum.freegamedev.net/viewforum.php?f=16
Though I would wager it wouldn't get high priority, but patches are as always welcome.

Alternatively, you can just mess around with your local copy. Find the root directory of STK, and inside the data directory you'll find a file named stk_config.xml. Around line 230 you'll find bonus-force="250 350". Set this to bonus-force="0 0" and there should be no acceleration directly due to skidding (haven't tested though). Please keep in mind that altering this file is not really encouraged, since it may trigger bugs/unwanted behaviour. Additionally, later on with online leaderboards and network play we'll have to find a way to prevent cheaters from using this file to cheat. But for now, feel free to have fun with it.

[LillyDragon]

Thanks for your informative reply. ^^ I think I'll sign up there and start a topic on the subject. Once my hands aren't as tied up on another project, I'd need to register for feedback on map making anyway. It'd be fun making custom tracks for SuperTuxKart.

The Easy AI will not use skidding at all. For humans, as you say there is the option of just collectively agreeing on not to use it, but feel free to suggest a special option in our forum: http://forum.freegamedev.net/viewforum.php?f=16
Though I would wager it wouldn't get high priority, but patches are as always welcome.

Alternatively, you can just mess around with your local copy. Find the root directory of STK, and inside the data directory you'll find a file named stk_config.xml. Around line 230 you'll find bonus-force="250 350". Set this to bonus-force="0 0" and there should be no acceleration directly due to skidding (haven't tested though). Please keep in mind that altering this file is not really encouraged, since it may trigger bugs/unwanted behaviour.

I'll have to drop by then. ^^ And I didn't know there was already a variable in the configuration file for tweaking the boost; that makes it much easier everybody. (So technically it's already an option for the end user! XD) If I knew anything about C++ beyond the syntax, I'd try to make a patch myself for the option in the UI, but I don't. (The way I write stuff in Game Maker 5.3a's GML scripts is kinda scary anyway. Can't even put basic while loops into proper use. =P)

Additionally, later on with online leaderboards and network play we'll have to find a way to prevent cheaters from using this file to cheat. But for now, feel free to have fun with it.

I didn't know network play was on the table for future versions, consider me excited to see how that goes! It'd be pure crazy to see more than four humans flying around the race track at once. I hope you guys can find a simple and effective way to protect the config script against the casual cheaters.

[mastablasta]

Yeah, that's a feature. So mastablasta, there's less grinding involved if you manage to do the gold trophies, and somewhat more with silver, and most with bronze. There's got to be an incentive to do the harder ones.

i went the first tournament on gold and won. it gave me 10 points. i haven't noticed additional points. i need to have a look at this. silver and hard are more fun.

i didn't know skidding gives a boost. was wondering why computer is using it. it doesn't mkae sense to me. but i guess it must have been a feature in mario karts (which i never played).

well still a couple of gold ones to win and then off to a new track. this is fun!

[zombifier25]

i didn't know skidding gives a boost. was wondering why computer is using it. it doesn't mkae sense to me. but i guess it must have been a feature in mario karts (which i never played).

It makes a lot of sense if you play a lot of kart racing games (Crash Team Racing, even Sonic Racers, ...)


Man, network play would be beast. It will be the ultimate Kart Racing game on Linux! I agree that there need to be an increase in difficulty, and perhaps slightly longer tracks for some competitive racing, since some tracks are too short.

Also, it's probably not really high on the devs' list of priorities, but I would love to see an AI for battle mode, or improve the battle mode a bit (if you could make a Twisted Metal-esque mode, then I would die)

[mikewhatever]

What are the minimal system requirements for game? Has the new version become more demanding, or not?

I've tried running the game on an old notebook with Precise 32bit, Nvidia 7400, 304.43 proprietary driver, and it looks like a slideshow, with xorg pegged at 100%. Compiz doesn't work well on that hardware, so I use Unity2d. Version 0.7.3 worked well in Ubuntu 10.04 on the same machine.

PS: For my own reference, the way to install the backported version is:

sudo apt-get install supertuxkart-data=0.8-1~ubuntu12.04.1 supertuxkart=0.8-1~ubuntu12.04.1

[Famicommander]

Wow, this game has improved by leaps and bounds since the last time I played it. I checked out the roadmap on the developer site and cannot wait for version 1.0. I really enjoy kart racing games, and while this one might fall short of the likes of Mario Kart 7 or Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed, it's much better than Sony's high-budget offerings like LittleBigPlanet Karting or Modnation Racers.

I'd really love to see a track creator/editor in the game, by the way.