Add and Conquer

No, not divide and conquer. Because this post will deal with add-ons in particular. :)

Why are add-ons important? It lets you as a user decide what content you find good enough for the game. Every time the project leaders have to decide on what track or kart they should remove to make place for new ones, they know that they will get complaints. It's just how it is; you can't make everybody happy. But now we actually can, to some degree. Add-ons can be created or uploaded by anyone, so if something gets removed, users can quickly add it to the growing repository of additional content. The only requirements are regarding licensing, which should be one or more Free, preferably DFSG-approved licenses, and the content should not be offensive and suite people of all ages. In other words, content recently removed from the main game should slide right in. Quality or difficulty doesn't matter for an add-on; as long as it works and licensing etc. is okay, it gets approved by the moderators of the stkaddons website.

Stephen (nicknamed sj04736) has steadily improved the website, and it should now have most of the basic features. People can also vote on add-ons there as long as they have an activated account. Why not try some of the additional karts, tracks and arenas available to install from within the game (requires version 0.7.2 or higher)? Or check out the website itself. It's a great piece of work, and Stephen doesn't get as much praise as he deserves, so be sure to send some kind thoughts to him when it all works so smoothly (and when it doesn't, please don't berate him, but file a bug report). ;)

Two yummy pie charts:

As you can see, there's a definite interest in add-ons. If you manage to create a particularly good one, it may even go on to conquer the game! Or, in other words, become part of the default set of karts, tracks or arenas.

Finally, if you like what we are doing, and got some more money to spend this year, why not make a donation? We'd be happy to take some of it off your back in order to further the game. ;)
In addition (or instead), you might want to donate to the awesome TuxFamily site, which hosts all the add-ons plus many other Free projects for no monetary compensation. Ain't that worth a few dollars if you've got some to spare? :)

Will 2012 be the year of SuperTuxKart on the desktop? Let's wait and see. ;)

Plans for milestone 0.8 and later

Here's a list of planned features for SuperTuxKart version 0.8 and beyond (0.8.1, 0.8.2). This may not be a complete list (it's based on the milestones page), and plans might change later on, but these are some of the main goals:

• Improve physics (skidding, pushing other karts aside)
  
• Career mode and/or different difficulties for challenges
• Eye candy (light effects, light maps, normal maps)
• Game replay
• Ghost races
• Reverse tracks
• Online highscore lists

Only some of this will be ready for 0.8, while others will come in subsequent "minor" releases. Also, a release might be done even if not all the features are met, while other times features might come in earlier than anticipated. So these are the main goals, but they are not 100% set in stone: other things might be added, or some of this might get postponed.

Some of this are already in the works. Improved physics is the most important feature for 0.8, and hiker has already started on it. Meanwhile, Auria has added normal map support, so for track makers this is a feature to consider.

We do not know when we will be ready for a release, but as a rough, unfounded guesstimate, maybe we'll see the 0.8 release 6-12 months from now on, give or take a few decades. ;)

What we do know, is that we'd love to see more people join in on this project in any area they are interested in. So if you want to help out with your skills, please get in touch and we'll try to get you started. :)

SuperTuxKart 0.7.3 released

4 months after SuperTuxKart 0.7.2, 128 tickets later and a truckload of changes, we are proud to present the latest and greatest version, SuperTuxKart 0.7.3. The big surprise is the very late-minute inclusion of the very beautiful Minigolf track by Mac, thanks for the contribution! (Don't let its childish look trick you however as it is a very challenging track :)

The biggest changes since 0.7.2 include :

• New Minigolf track
• New Zen Garden track
• New Subsea track
• New Island battle arena
• New Suzanne kart
• New graphical effects
• New weapons 'Swatter' and 'Rubber Ball'
• Added Thunderbird as race referee
• 3 Strikes Battles now displays lives as spare tires
• Improved bubble gum
• See progression during Grand Prix
• Improve physics for tall karts (e.g. Adiumy)
• Lots of bug fixes
• Improved kart control at high speeds
• Better placement of rescued karts
• Transition track-making to blender 2.5/2.6

So now head to our downloads page, enjoy and give us a lot of feedback on the forum!

Joerg and Auria

SuperTuxKart 0.7.3 Release Candidate 1 is now out!

Hi everyone,

I you many of you were very impatient for 0.7.3 to come out, and it's true that it took longer than expected, but it's now here... or at least a release candidate :)

Compared to STK 0.7.2, this new version brings the following improvements :

• New Zen Garden and Subsea tracks
• New Island battle arena
• New Suzanne kart
• New graphical effects
• New weapons 'Swatter' and 'Rubber Ball'
• Added Thunderbird as race referee
• 3 Strikes Battles now displays lives as spare tires
• Improved bubble gum
• See progression during Grand Prix
• Improve physics for tall karts (e.g. Adiumy)
• Lots of bug fixes
• Improved kart control at high speeds
• Better placement of rescued karts
• Transition track-making to blender 2.5/2.6

Get your copy from https://sourceforge.net/projects/supertuxkart/files/SuperTuxKart/0.7.3-rc1/ . OSX, Windows and source packages will appear there in the coming minutes, and more may come.

Please test and report any problem you find! However please note that it is recommended to use the forum and not blog comments to report bugs.

Delays, delays, nothing but delays

No, I am absolutely not impatient. No siree. But I don't blame our dear developers even though 0.7.3 ain't ready yet. There are reasons for that, and the game continues improving anyway, but there aren't any good reasons for me to let a whole month and more pass by before writing any news here. So you can verbally slap me with trouts and other sea creatures as much as you like. But the less aquatic of you are probably impatiently waiting for the news, so let's get on with the showcase.

Subzeanne

Big content news: we've got a new kart, 'Suzanne', in the game. The female monkey from Blender replaces 'Gooey', and it was about time we got our modeling tool of choice represented in the game. Thanks a lot to Céa for a very good-looking kart. :)
Speaking about sea creatures: the above is a new track. A new spin on an old track, one might say, as it's aptly named 'Subsea'. However, it's completely made from scratch by Rudy, with several possible routes featuring ships, sea monsters and other things that makes your mouth water. The landsharks will be happy to know that you're inside tubes, so for the most part, you won't get your proverbial feet wet.

Thunderbird with traffic light(n)ing

Thunderbird debuts as a start referee, with the heavy burden of a traffic light (normally, he deals with mail, I believe). Remember, red means "Hold it", yellow means "Start the race already" and green means "Step on it!", no matter if it's pedals or your keyboard. Thunderbird plays the traffic warden with style, and gracefully rescues you as well in case of "accidents". Thanks to Kinsu for the model and animaton, and fraag for its texture.

Littering the paradise

The Three Strikes Battle mode got a new arena, 'Battle Island' by qubodup. It's his first track, and a good one too, so if you want to try modeling for STK, why not try making a battle arena? :)
You may wonder what the tires are there for. Well, they show your current amount of lives, and if you lose a life, you lose a tire. The last life is represented by your normal tires, so when you (or preferably your foe) are eliminated, you lose your 4 regular wheels! Awesome, innit? :D Thanks a lot to both Auria and new contributor khonkortisan for making this possible.

In item news, the bouncer should now work mostly as intended, but we're looking for another model for it which captures the idea of bouncing better. So if you want to give it a shot we'd be happy to hear your suggestions and see your work.
The bubble gum behaviour has changed a little, so instead of stopping in an instant, you get slowed down rapidly and leave a pink trail after you, while losing some control of your kart.
Also, the bomb gives now an audible tick-tock sound, so you can hear if someone with a bomb approaches from behind, and take the necessary steps to avoid it. But don't hit the bomb kart with a swatter, since that will trigger the bomb and both will explode.

Misc: A better rescue system is now in place, but so far it's been largely untested. It should be much better in some situations now, which will hopefully help remove some player frustration.
The physics has been tweaked to work better with tall karts, and it should be quite notable on certain karts (e.g. Adiumy).
You can now see how far you've progressed in a Grand Prix, thanks to new contributor Termina1.
Conflicts in keyboard configurations are now marked in blue thanks to new contributor redskull.
The exporters for Blender 2.59+ has gotten considerably faster and also better in terms of documentation in the STK Blender panels.

As you might have noticed, there are a few new contributors submitting patches for various parts of SuperTuxKart, and this is highly valued as such contributions often provide the extra little feel of professionalism to a game. If you're a budding programmer, why don't you take a look in our bug tracker and see if there's anything you can help out with? Any help on closing the dozens of bug reports that are in circulation is much welcomed. Or, if you want to work on something else, that's awesome as well, but please drop us a line and tell us what you're working on, in order to prevent duplication of efforts.

Oh, you probably want to know when 0.7.3 will be out. "Soon" is the best answer I can give. ;)