Super Tux Kart player's manual
Introduction
SuperTuxKart (abbreviated STK) is a fun kart racing game, focusing on
fun and not on realistic physics. You can find more details on
http://supertuxkart.sourceforge.net
It was originally based on Steve Baker's TuxKart (http://tuxkart.sourceforge.net),
but by now has developed a life on its own. It was
picked up by the Linux Game Tome (http://www.happypenguin.org)
Game of the Month project and got a big overhaul during this time,
but was left in an unfinished state.
A new set of maintainers, namely hiker & coz, took over in 2006,
and since then three official versions (0.2, 0.3, and 0.4) have been
released.
Requirements
Hardware
* You need a 3D graphics card that can support OpenGL or Mesa.
* You should have a CPU that's running at 450MHz or better.
* You'll need at least 32Mb RAM.
* A sound card would be nice - but it's not essential.
* Ideally, you want a joystick - preferably one with at least 6
á buttons - you can also drive from the keyboard or the mouse,
á thought currently it is hard to drive with the mouse.
Software
Right now, SuperTuxKart runs under Linux, Windows, and MacOSX.
While we are not aware of any ports to BSD, BeOS, etc., we don't
expect a problem on those platforms.
You need the following programs installed:
OpenGL (or Mesa 3.0 or later)
ááá http://www.opengl.org,á http://www.mesa3d.org
PLIB 1.8.4
ááá http://plib.sourceforge.net
SDL 1.2
ááá http://www.libsdl.org
OpenAL
ááá http://www.openal.org
ALUT
ááá http://www.openal.org
Controlling your kart
To wináraces you will need to master your controls. Here are the
predefined controls:
| Function |
Player 1 |
Player 2 |
Player 3 |
Player 4 |
| Steer |
Left / Right arrow |
A / D key |
F / H key |
J / L key |
| Accelerate |
Up arrow |
W key |
T key |
I key |
| Brake |
Down arrow |
S key |
G key |
K key |
| Use item |
Right control |
Left Control |
N key |
. key |
| Wheelie |
Right shift |
Left shift |
C key |
M key |
| Rescue |
Backspace |
Q key |
R key |
U key |
| Jump |
- key |
Caps lock |
V key |
, key |
| Look back |
Right alt |
Left alt |
N key |
/ key |
The rescue button is meant to be used if your kart is stuck; it
will send you to the track with your approximate progress, but
it will take a few seconds.
The Escape key pauses the game and shows the race menu. Also,
pressing Escape in a menu will exit from it, and in the main
menu it closes the game.
There are also some special functions:
á F10 key - Save the last 1000 frames into a file ./history.dat
ááááááááááá This can be used to reproduce problems occurring
ááááááááááá during a race. This is mainly useful for developers.
á F11 key - Toggle wire-frame view.
á F12 key - Toggle frame-per-second display.
The race screen
This screen has several components:
á Position display (left) : here you will see the places of
á everyone participating in the race; after the leader goes
á though the goal, a counter will appear next to their images
á showing how much time behind they are. The places are
á initially colored in white, which will become a bit more red
á with every lap finished; after the race is finished the
á place appear in green.
á Track map (bottom left corner) : this will show the position
á of everyone, in relation to the track; humans are drawn with
á bigger dots.
á Lap (right of the track map) : the left number shows how many
á laps you have completed, the right number shows how many laps
á you have to complete to finish the race.
á Item (top) : the number of items and what is that you are
á holding is displayed here.
á Power bar (right) : it displays how much power you have by
á grabbing energizers.
á Speed bar (bottom right) : shows how fast you are moving.
á Steering wheel: when you steer, the front wheels do not rotate
á to their limit instantly; instead, they take less than a
á second to achieve full rotation. The current rotation is
á displayed here.
á
á Current place: here it is shown how much you have advanced in
á comparation with your competitors.
á Time: how much time it takes for you to reach the goal.
Game modes
Three different game modes are available:
1) Grand Prix
áá A set of several races, each with several laps.
2) Quick Race
áá A single race (with between 1 and 5 laps).
3) Time Trial
áá A single race without opponents.
4) Follow the Leader
áá A single race where your goal is to be the closest to
áá the leader kart. The last kart is eliminated each round.
Multiplayer
Split screen multi-player is supported, though you need a
somewhat powerful computer and graphics card to get a high frame
rate in this case. Network multi-player is not yet supported.
When playing with your friends, the screen will be divided in
cuadrants. Even thought there are default controls for all
players, you should change them if you feel uncomfortable, or
if you have a joystick.
Also, after you finish the race, you might want to go back to
give your friends some trouble!
Collectables
There are currently many 'good things' you can get (triggered by
touching an item box) and a few 'bad things'.
When you pick up one of the good things, you will see it on your
item box, and activate it by using an item (see above for
default key bindings).
Bad things happen immediately - and last for a few seconds
before 'going away' by themselves.
Notice that (unlike some kart games), the computer controlled
players also collect and use power-ups in the same way you do.
Energizers gradually fill up the energy level - as you collect
more, you'll find that an item cube will subsequently give you
two, three, four or five power-ups at one time!
Good Things
 |
Missiles: unguided but fast. If they hitáanything á(including áthe
track), they explode impressively. The effect on a Kart is áto stop
it dead - so you have to accelerate again from zero. |
 |
Homing missiles: slower than the regular kind - but they track the
nearest kart and are quite hard to shake off. |
 |
áFuzzy blob / Spark: even slower still, a kart can outrun them
quite easily. They ricochet off the sides of the track and only
explode when they hit a Kart. Since they are not moving fast, they'll
tend to stay close to where you dropped them, thoughtyou won't know
exactly where. |
 |
Portable Zippers: these are just like the zippers on the track
áitself - they give you a sudden acceleration and
temporarilyáincrease the top speed of your kart. |
 |
Portable parachutes: this pops out the back of all the karts in a
better position than you and slows them down a for some seconds. The
worse your position is, the higher the probabilities of getting this
you have (but they are stillsmall). You can only have one at a time.
|
 |
áPortable anvil: the driver in the first position gets dragged by a
heavy anvil, allowing other drivers to catch up with him... like the
portable parachutes, the worse your position is, the higher
probabilities of getting this you have. However, you can't get this
if the driver in the first position alreadyfinished the race, and you
can't have more than one at a time. |
Bad Things
áParachute: this pops out the back of your kart and slows you down
áa little for a few seconds only. Enough to drop you back one place
áif it's a close race though.
á
áAnvil: gets dragged behind your kart on a rope for an even shorter
áamount of time than the parachute... but the drag effect is much
ástronger; your kart hardly moves at all.
á
áBomb: after 30 seconds the bomb will explode, but if another kart
átouches you, the bomb will be transfered to it and the remaining
átime will be reduced by 5 seconds. If you hit a banana while
áhaving a bomb attach, it will explode immediately! Also, the bomb
ácan't be transfered to the inmediate previous bomb holder.
Game mechanics and tips
As a racer in SuperTuxKart,áyour goal is to reach the
finish line before your opponents, but as a bonus you might want
to show your awesome driving skills.
The item cubes contain helpful objects; which item you get is
matter of luck. If you have an item already, you will get another
item of the same type if by luck the random selection chooses
the same item type as the one you already have.
The energizers will increase the number of items you grab from a
single item cube. You may only have up to 5 items, except the
anvil and the parachute, since anvils are so heavy and you have
so many parachutes, there is not much room and you can only
carry one!
On the track there could be zippers, which will give you a boost
when you go over them. Avoid water and lava, since you can't
drive on them and you will have to be rescued just before
you touch them!
There are also nasty things left on the track which will put an
anvil or a parachute on your kart.
If you don't have items that you wish to use, try not to be in
a collision course towards other karts, since they might have
items of their own to throw at you! also, if they crash you
could go down with them.
If you are running rather fast, you can pop a wheelie, which gives
you an additional speed boost, but you can't steer your kart
while doing a wheelie (since your front wheels are not touching
the track), so be careful.
When all human controlled karts finish the race, the game will wait
some seconds for the AI to finish the race. If the AI doesn't, it
will estimate the arrival time based on the kart's average speed.
If you are tired of playing the same way, complete some challenges
and you will unlock new features!
Comand line options
Useful command line options:
-N, --no-start-screenáá Quick start without any menus
-l, --list-tracksáááááá List all tracks
-k, --numkarts NUMááááá Number of karts to race
ááá --kart NAMEáááááááá Use kart NAME
ááá --list-kartsááááááá Lists all available karts
ááá --laps NUMááááááááá Number of laps to play
ááá --herring STYLEáááá Use STYLE as your herring style
-f, --fullscreenááááááá Fullscreen display
-w, --windowedááááááááá Windowed display
-s, --screensize WxHááá Set screensize, e.g. -s 800x600
-v, --versionáááááááááá Show version
-h, --helpááááááááááááá Show command-line options
Support
If you have any problems, please send an e-mail to the
Super Tux Kart mailing list atá supertuxkart-devel@lists.sourceforge.netá.
The archives of this mailing list can be found at
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_name=supertuxkart-devel/á.
There is also a wiki on the homepage atáhttp://supertuxkart.sourceforge.netá.
License
SuperTuxKart is released under the provisions of
the GNU General Public License (GPL).