SupertuxKart 1.2 release

The SuperTuxKart team is happy to announce the release of version 1.2. Online play is still compatible with previous 1.x versions.

 
SuperTuxKart 1.2 official trailer

Downloads

Due to complaints about download speed on SourceForge, from this release onward we will also upload our binaries and source tarball on GitHub. This will be offered as a fallback in case of SourceForge downtime or slow download speed. The SourceForge download will still be here.

Here are more details for the 1.2 release:

What's new?

The release candidate blogpost explains some of the more important changes from 1.1. But here is an overview:

• Much better gamepad support, by using SDL2 instead of Irrlicht for window creation
• SuperTuxKart now support gamepad hotplugging
  
• Most gamepad related bugs have been fixed as well
• Easier remapping

• New settings to customize the game's camera
• On Android, all official tracks are now included in the release build
• A new "Cartoon" theme (the "Modern" theme previously announced) featuring an alternative icon set

• An improved online rating system. Online rankings have been reset to go along with it.
  
• The game's window can now be resized in-game without going in the options
  
• The minimap now shows basketballs
• Haiku support
• In Android, use a custom splash screen at launch and a better progress indicator during data extraction after download
  
• Any addon kart can now be used online even if other players don't have it.
• Three improved karts : a new Kiki kart and improved Pidgin and Puffy karts
  

• Add support for IPv6 LAN servers
• Improved server creation speed and performance
  
• In-game creation of a racing server is now possible on iOS devices
  
• An improved tutorial with free-flow racing
• Support for SVG icons
• New tips for soccer mode
• Team chat for team games
  
• And many many enhancements and fixes too small to be listed here, but that add up

What's next?

SuperTuxKart development efforts will continue in the 1.x series, with another release targeted in a few months. While not as catchy as brand new tracks, gameplay mechanics or graphics effects, the changes will once again improve player experience.

Beyond more polish, development on Vulkan support is planned to begin as well as general improvements in the rendering engine for more performance.

We have also sent another e-mail to previous contributors for the dual-licensing of STK code, with a more detailed background. Check here for information.

After this, our focus will switch to a 2.0 release that will deliver many new or overhauled tracks, gameplay changes, and much more. The work on improved tracks has already begun.

SuperTuxKart is a free open-source game that depends on community contributions. There is no shortage of things to work on for programmers and 3D artists alike.

How quickly the next releases will come and how much content they bring might also depend on you!

You can download SuperTuxKart 1.2 here or here.

SuperTuxKart 1.2 Release Candidate 1 available!

We are happy to announce the release of the first release candidate for STK 1.2!

As this release is in the 1.x series, it will be compatible with the previous 1.x releases in terms of online gameplay and physics.

One of the most important changes for this release is that we ported a lot of low-level windows creation/input handling code to SDL2, which improves/allows the following:

Improved gamepad handling

In the past, our gamepad handling was done using outdated Irrlicht-based code, which lacks basic features like hotplug. With SDL2, STK has the following improvements to gamepad handling:


- Hotplug support: You can now plug/unplug gamepads and STK will immediately detect the changes, restarting STK is no longer required.
- SDL2 gamepad controller mapping: This allows a uniform default controller binding suitable for most Xbox-style controllers, and also makes re-mapping controls significantly easier (buttons will show up as e.g. "X" or "Left thumbstick left", rather than "Button 19", etc.)
- Most gamepad-related bugs, such as not being able to rebind controls on some devices/platforms, should now be fixed.  If you were having issues with your gamepad in a previous release, make sure to give this release a try!

Improved portability to new platforms

One example is our Haiku port, now that SDL2 is used, its pull request was just feature definitions for platform specific code, see https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-code/pull/4309. With SDL2, we also now allow using the Asian input method for all platforms we support, thanks to excellent text handling in SDL2.

We've also been hard at work improving many other areas of STK!

For the user interface, we integrated a "Modern" skin, which is in a new, different style compared to our existing skins. One big highlight of this skin is that all icons of it are drawn as SVG icons. We are working on allowing STK to render the SVG files directly, which will help the GUI to not be pixelated at high resolutions, without having to using large PNG files. We may write more on this skin's features in a future blog post.

For gameplay, we added multiple camera modes, which allow significantly more flexibility for the user:

We also adjusted the code for online servers, so you can now use any addon karts online!

Although there aren't any new tracks in this release, one of our community members, Crystal, updated the Pidgin kart with some improvements, such as headlight/taillight, new tires, and a new spoiler.

Additionally, we switched to a new packaging format for the Android release, which allows all tracks to be bundled without additional downloads.

For the progress in dual-licensing STK, currently around 30-40% of contributors have agreed.  We will send another email which will give more information before the final 1.2 comes out.

We hope you enjoy the release of STK 1.2 Release Candidate 1, get it here!

SuperTuxKart 1.1 released

We are happy to announce that the final 1.1 release is ready!

Compared to the previous release candidate, based on the feedback we received, you can now change the touchscreen controller type in race paused dialog:

As previously stated, we have started the process to dual license STK to MPLv2 or any later version, and therefore we have started contacting the previous contributors as stated on https://supertuxkart.net/STK_Dual_licensing (see previous blogpost for more details on dual-licensing).

So in case you have name there make sure to check your mailbox, we look forward to your reply!

What's new?

The new features were described in more detail in the previous blogpost so you can refer to the previous post for more details. Here is a summary of the new changes :

• Improved online multiplayer play
• Fix network lags in various scenarios when playing online
• Add AI support to local networking servers
• UI enhancements
• A new arena: Pumpkin Park
• Mobile enhancements and iOS support (The iOS version can be tested through testflight : https://testflight.apple.com/join/mbK8RjHq )
• Complex text layout and emoji support
• Story mode timer for speedrunners
• Generic polish and minor improvements

Check https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-code/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md for details

Downloads

Download the game here : https://sourceforge.net/projects/supertuxkart/files/SuperTuxKart/1.1