Here's a video of the actual game play:
SuperTuxKart 0.6 (January 2009)
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- New improved physics and kart handling
- Added sharp turns and nitro speed boost (replacing wheelies and jump)
- Totally rewrote powerups (plunger, bowling ball, cake, bubblegum) and new look for bananas
- New and improved tracks : skyline, snow mountain, race track, space track, old mine, XR591
- New game mode : 3-Strikes Battle
- Major improvements to AI
- New/improved karts (and removed some old ones) : wilber, eviltux, hexley
- Improved user interface
- Karts now have a visible suspension effect
- Fully positional audio with OpenAL
- New music and sound effects (including engine, braking and skidding sounds)
- Better support for mods and add-ons (kart and track groups)
- New/updated translations (ga fi de nl sl fr it es ro sv)
- Allowed 'Grand Prix's of Time Trial, Follow the Leader, or any other mode
- Challenges are now specified in config files, and are thus easy to create by users
- Improved build system to better detect missing dependencies
- Improved shortcut-detection
- Initial work towards networking (disabled and hidden by default)
- Bug fixes and code refactor/cleanup/documentation
- Fixed 'joystick locks' (kart would turn even if the joystick is in neutral), thanks to Samjam for the patch.
Posts
Great relese, the new tracks look very nice, but i have one single question: Why did you convert this easy playable game with simple and working steering functionality into a nitro junkie drifting kart game with nearly uncontrollable karts for younger players?
ReplyDeletePlus: New options, new power-ups, new functions, new tracks, etc. it’s all great and i really appreciate your work, but why is there still no volume slider?
Hi Dirk,
ReplyDeletethanks a lot for your feedback! To your questions:
"Why did you convert this easy playable game with simple and working steering functionality into a nitro junkie drifting kart game with nearly uncontrollable karts r younger players?"
Well, you are the first one to complain, and we actually have tested STK with kids. They usually love the faster driving, and consider the older version to be boring. We actually asked for feedback for this particular issue for our 0.6 release candidate on the forum as well, and hardly got any response. Nearly all people were happy with the speed (and one of the most criticised points of earlier releases was that it is too slow and boring). Perhaps you could try to get involve a bit more in the development process by giving us earlier feedback in our forum?
But even then we tuned down the easy level AI (which also affects the speed the karts are driving at) - esp. for beginners. And while a kart or two have minor problems in some of the steeper parts (esp. hexley and wilber), we are not aware of any issues with the karts being uncontrollable.
"why is there still no volume slider?"
First of all, because our GUI doesn't have a widget to do that :) And since we are moving to irrlicht (with better widgets support), we postponed implementing that. Secondly, we did some work on tuning the sfx and music, and think that mostly just adjusting the volume on the speakers should work - till we have time to implement gui elements for this (it is a 0.X release after all). If it's important for you, the config files actually support a setting of the volume, so you can change it with a text editor. Please contact us in our forum if you need details.
“(and one of the most criticised points of earlier releases was that it is too slow and boring).”
ReplyDeleteWell, it was slower. But it was more easy to control. Now one have to keep an eye on sliding, braking, steering, using nitro, shooting opponents and staying on the track at the same time. Even for ME it isn’t thtat easy as it was in the earlier versions :)
“Perhaps you could try to get involve a bit more in the development process by giving us earlier feedback in our forum?”
I’m no “update early, update often” person. If my distribution ships me the new version, i take it of course. If this includes having nearly a complete new game, it’s okay for me. Being finished by AI opponents isn’t that funny *gg* Maybe i’d let the kids play, instead of playing myself :)
“But even then we tuned down the easy level AI”
Did you tune up the second AI level too? Or does it only seem to be harder because of the different kart handling?
“(it is a 0.X release after all).”
(And a very good one.)
“If it's important for you, the config files actually support a setting of the volume, […]”
Since when? Before the latest update i tried to change “sfx-volume” according to the informations about AL_GAIN in the internet. It just got ignored. But maybe i was wrong :)
I find the newer version a lot more fun and more challenging.
DeleteI'm a kid my self and though a lot of the tracks annoy me I keep on playing till I master it. I'm one of those "try now, read the manual later" types. I test out most of the stuff by trial and error.
If controls are confusing you I suggest this key config:
Forward: Up
Backward: Down
Left: Left
Right: Right
Nitro: Num 4
Sharp turn: Num 5
Fire: Num 6
Help: Num 2
Look back: Num 3
Warning: in multi player if your competitor is using AWSD controls you can't fire while looking back.
I played for short while and overal I think that nitro is better then wheelie from 0.5.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing i don't like is this sharp turn. It would be nice if it would be optional but i think that it's required many times to not to fail of the track. I think that normal turning has not enough "strength" to drive whole track with it.
Follow the AIs. They hardly ever use sharp turn unless they're going back and forth.
DeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI am currently working on adding this release to the gentoo portage (our package manager).
Great release. I like the nitro, bowling balls and the cakes and of course the new tracks and graphics. I'll try to get my 10 year old nephew to test it too, but in the meantime its good fun for this 40+ year old too :-)
One question. Why is the grand prix only a few tracks and not all. is this where track groups come in? How can I choose/configure other than this starter group?
Mons
Hi, I'll try to answer this one:
ReplyDelete"Why is the grand prix only a few tracks and not all. is this where track groups come in? How can I choose/configure other than this starter group?"
It was decided to split the Grand Prix up to several ones, each with a theme. The reason was that the Grand Prix were so long; most people wouldn't care to race it more than once. Besides, if something went wrong, you had to race all the tracks again in order to win it.
Track groups aren't in use with STK 0.6, but together with the 0.6.1 release there will be an additional package to download for those interested, with more tracks and karts.
Is there VC++ source pacakge? or can anyone tell me how to port the unix source code to VC++? thanks
ReplyDeleteSliding sound has now been replaced with cringe-worthy music that drives me nuts, I have music silenced but it still plays instead of sliding sound. (It only started doing this recently after it had been working fine).
ReplyDeleteAlso how do I permanently set the amount of laps to 5 or more?