SuperTuxKart is a Mascot Racer for PC. It's an open-source game similar to Mario Kart, but it has become more distinctive over time. It features some of the most well-known free software mascots, including (among others) Tux (Linux's mascot), Beastie (BSD and derivatives's mascot), Wilber (The Gimp's mascot), and Gnu (GNU's mascot). The game uses Antarctica, a heavily modified version of the the Irrlicht Engine for graphics, while using the Bullet Engine for physics.
The game can be downloaded for free here
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Not to be confused with Tux Racer.
SuperTuxKart 0.9.1 provides examples of:
- Alliterative Name: Bovine Barnyard, Minigolf Madness, Shifting Sands, Shiny Suburbs.
- Artificial Stupidity: AI karts sometimes can make stupid mistakes:
- A bunch of AI karts may aim for the item box on the left, leaving open the item box on the right.
- In rare moments, an AI kart will boost at the wrong time, and launch itself off the track.
- The AI can't handle certain curves. Some examples include, Blackhill Mansion in Reverse Mode, and the Minigolf track.
- A rare ocurrence, an AI kart can get stuck in a literal wall banger. A stuck AI will usually hit its own Reset Button, but not if the kart is bouncing off a wall in front. If a kart is far behind everyone, this is probably what happened. A good place to observe this is XR591 in "Follow the Leader" mode. If the leader gets stuck, everyone else will try to stay behind the leader.
- Banana Peel: The tracks have large, spinning banana peels. Each one acts as a Poison Mushroom and causes random harm to your kart. You may get a parachute (slowing you), an anchor (forcing you to stop), or an Incredibly Obvious Bomb. Then the banana peel respawns.
- Build Like an Egyptian: Shifting Sands.
- CamelCase: The name SuperTuxKart.
- Car Fu: AI karts will ram you, though you can also do it to them. With help from the physics engine, the collision may force a kart off the road or flip it into midair.
- Cool Starship: STK Enterprise.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: In the race against Nolok in the story mode, he gets to set bubblegum (which for him looks like some sort of green slime with spikes) and activate a flyswatter (which for him looks like a hammer) at will.
- Difficult, but Awesome:
- The Bowling Ball. It's easy to miss and not even its user is safe from it, but should it hit an opponent, it grants the biggest slowdown in the entire game, and also has Splash Damage.
- Skidding. Some tracks have precise moments where this can be used without going out of the road, but done well, it grants a boost without the need of Nitro itself. This is extremely useful to beat any level on Hard mode and to beat the Nitro levels on Story Mode.
- Edible Ammunition: Cupcakes explode!
- Excuse Plot: Nolok kidnaps Gnu, and it's up to Tux to beat all the challenges in order to free his friend.
- Hot Potato: If a kart picks up a bomb, racers will play hot potato. You can pass the bomb by bumping another kart, but you can't pass it back to a racer who already carried it.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Nolok threatens Tux with eating his friend GNU unless he wins against him in a race.
- Incredibly Obvious Bomb: If you hit a Banana Peel, you kart might pick up a bundle of red sticks with a ticking clock. Not a good thing. Bump another kart to pass the bomb. Before it blows up!
- Jungle Japes: Cocoa Temple.
- Lethal Lava Land: Fort Magma.
- Nitro Boost: Karts can collect and store "nitro" to get a boost. These nitros come in "pill" (short) and "barrel" (large) versions. There are also dash pads on some tracks, and dash arrows in some item boxes. After version 0.8.0, karts can sometimes boost after skidding a sharp turn.
- Player Creation Sharing: It's intended for people to be able to make new tracks for battle mode and race mode, as well as new characters. You can download most of these in the 'add-ons' menu. And the game even comes with a Level Editor.
- Poison Mushroom: The Banana Peel is like a bad item box: it causes random bad stuff. Your kart may get a parachute (slowing you), an anchor (forcing you to stop), or an Incredibly Obvious Bomb.
- Reset Button: A kart falling off the track forces a reset, but stuck players can also hit the assigned key to reset whenever. The reset (in the form of Mozilla Thunderbird's mascot) lifts the kart back onto the track. This only resets one kart, so the other karts race ahead while this happens.
- Scotland: "Nessie's Pond", one of the tracks, is inspired by the Scottish countryside.
- Secondary Fire: Looking back will fire the weapons at folks behind you, sometimes with different properties.
- Shout-Out: One of the tracks is a Cool Starship called STK Enterprise.
- Single-Use Shield: The Bubblegum Shield.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: A frictionless variant on two stages: Snow Peak and Northern Resort.
- SNK Boss: Nolok can activate the Bubblegum Shield and the Flyswatter (for him, they look like a spined bubble and a hammer) at will, and he starts with full Nitro. Furthermore, once his Bubble explodes, the remains stop the player instead of slowing them down, and the Item Swapper won't work on these remains (i.e don't turn them as big barrels).
- Splash Damage: The explosive cupcake and the bowling ball can hit and slow down anything in its range.
- Unlockable Content: Many of the tracks, the Follow The Leader gametype, the SuperTux difficulty, and Nolok and Gnu, by beating the Challenges.
- Vehicular Combat
- Wacky Racing: Races involving a Mario Kart-like gameplay in another planet, in an underground mine, in a spaceship, in a jungle, in the Egyptian desert (complete with camels), you name it.
- Wide-Open Sandbox: The story mode hub is built in such a way that you can visit any place/GP at any time and race freely. Though you can only play at Fort Magma if you beat all the other challenges first.
Past versions of STK showed examples of:
- All Deserts Have Cacti: Coyote Canyon from the 0.7 versions is a racetrack in a rocky desert with saguaro cacti. It resembles the Grand Canyon in Arizona, though saguaro is not among the cacti at the Grand Canyon.
- Alliterative Name: Crescent Crossing and Tux Tollway.
- Fantastic Measurement System: The speedometer uses "tf/s", which means "teraflops/second". Teraflops are a measure of processing speed.
- Jungle Japes: Amazonian Journey. Mild example with Secret Garden.
- Lemony Narrator: There's a (silent) narrator who announces attacks.X is dubious of Y's cooking skills.
X should not play with Y's lunch.
Y ruins X's cakeless diet. - Nostalgia Level: Among the add-ons are levels from older versions of both TuxKart and SuperTuxKart, including Tux Tollway, Classic Tollway (the old Tux Tollway), Coyote Canyon, Crescent Crossing, Secret Garden, and older versions of Fort Magma, Subsea and The Island.
- Palmtree Panic: The Island.
- Shifting Sand Land: Coyote Canyon is in a desert. Yes, it has cacti.
- Shout-Out:
- One of the predefined messages for the anchor is "<player> pays the next round of grog".
- One of the predefined messages for the swapper is "A Wizard Did It".
- Talk Like a Pirate: Several instances involving the use of the anchor item.
