Everyone’s favourite open source kart racing game has a brand new release out, with changes gamers are going to love.
SuperTuxKart 1.2 boasts better gamepad handling. This includes much-needed hot plugging support so that you can connect/disconnect controllers during the game without needing to restart it. The game also adds the ability to use SDL2 controller mapping (which is ideal if you’re using an Xbox-style controller).
The title also adds new settings to customize the in-game camera, an improved online rating system (only rankings have been reset to enable this), and a handful of improved karts, including souped-up Pidgin and Puffy racers.
Visual quality is also much better to. SuperTuxKart uses a new “modern” theme that, aside from looking a bit fresher, should look much sharper too. This is because the theme now uses SVG icons instead of PNG assets, allowing for seamless scaling on high-resolution displays. Look out for the “cartoon” icon theme, pictured in the hero at the start of this post.
While there are no new tracks in this release the game now lets you use add-on karts in online multiplayer races.
Download SuperTuxKart 1.2
Fancy having some hands-on experience with all of the changes above (plus many more)?
You can download SuperTuxKart 1.2 for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android from the project’s Sourceforge or GitHub pages.
If you use Ubuntu or Linux Mint and you want the latest version there’s an official release PPA. To use this to install SuperTuxKart 1.2 on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and above run:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stk/dev
sudo apt install supertuxkart
Although I really enjoy SuperTuxKart’s online play I am terrible at it! So if you ever see me in a race (I use the username @omgubuntu) please accept an apology in advance for whatever car crash (literally) unfolds. I’d blame the game but, alas, it’s definitely me — I should file a bug with myself!