SuperTuxKart
============

SuperTuxKart is a free kart racing gaming featuring Tux and his
friends covered under the GNU GPL (see COPYING for details). It is
based on TuxKart by Steve Baker, but contains improved graphics and
userinterface.

The SuperTuxKart webpage is located at:

 * http://supertuxkart.berlios.de

Questions and Comments should go to supertuxkart-devel@lists.berlios.de
Mailing list subscribe information is available at:

  http://supertuxkart.berlios.de/contact.html


PLAYING THE GAME:

Ideally, you need a 'gamepad' style joystick with at least six buttons:

  Joystick Left/Right:  Steer.

  A button - Accelerate.
  B button - Brake.
  C button - Use an item you've collected from a Red Herring
  D button - Ask to be rescued by tinytux.
  L button - Pop a wheelie (if you are going fast enough).
  R button - Jump.

In addition, you can drive from the keyboard. The controls are
changeable from the in-game options menu, but the defaults are:

  LEFT/RIGHT ARROW: Steer.

  UP-ARROW   - Same as 'A' button - Accelerate
  DOWN-ARROW - Same as 'B' button - Brake

  A key - Same as 'L' button - pop a Wheelie
  S key - Same as 'R' button - Jump
  D key - Same as 'D' button - Rescue Me Please!
  F key - Same as 'C' button - Use an item


The following keys control the in-game GUI:

  Joystick/keyboard cursors/mouse - highlight menu options
  Enter/fire button/fire key/left mouse button - select menu options
  Escape/brake button/brake key/right mouse button - return to previous menu


There are also some debug functions left in for developers:

  W key - Toggle wireframe view
  Z key - Toggle statistics gathering
  F12 - Display FPS counter

From the Menu bar, you can turn sound effects and music on and off,
enable or disable the 'mousetrap' (which keeps the mouse in the window
to stop you accidentally losing the mouse pointer on Voodoo-1/2
hardware)

On the tracks, you'll find Red, Silver and Gold Herring (Yum - good!),
and Green Herring (Yuk - bad!) - also arrow-shaped red and black
'zippers' that give you a quick speedup.

Use the 'rescue' key if you crash and can't get back onto the track.
It's sometimes activated automatically if (for example) you get stuck
in hot lava. TinyTux will lift your cart up and put it back onto the
track.


POWERUPS:

I currently have many 'good things' (triggered by eating a Red Herring)
and a few 'bad things' (triggered by eating a Green Herring by mistake).

Good things are collectables - you pick them up by driving through the
Red Herring and activate them by pushing the 'C' button on the joystick
(or ENTER on the keyboard).

Bad things happen immediately - and last for a few seconds before 'going
away' by themselves.

Notice that (unlike some kart games), the computer controlled players
also collect and use powerups.

Silver and Gold Herrings gradually fill up Tux's tummy (represented by
the herring bone at the top of the screen) - as you eat more herring,
you'll find that a Red Herring will subsequently give you two, three,
four or five powerups at one time!


Good Things:

    * Missiles - unguided but fast. If they hit anything, they explode
      impressively. The effect on a Kart is to stop it dead - so you have to
      accellerate again.
    * Homing missiles - slower than the regular kind - but they track
      the nearest kart and are quite hard to shake off.
    * Fuzzy blobs - even slower still - a kart can outrun them quite
      easily. They ricochet off the sides of the track and only explode
      when they hit a Kart.
    * Magnets - if you activate a magnet then it hangs around for about
      15 seconds. If anyone comes within about 20 meters, you'll be
      pulled towards them and end up glued to their tail until the magnet
      'expires'. Great for catching up with someone - hopeless for passing
      them.
    * Portable Zippers - these are just like the zippers on the track
      itself - they give you a sudden accelleration and temporarily
      increase the top speed of your kart.

Bad Things:

    * Parachute - this pops out the back of your kart and slows you down
      a little for a few seconds only. Enough to drop you back one place
      if it's a close race though.
    * Anvil - gets dragged behind your kart on a rope for an even shorter
      amount of time than the parachute...but the drag effect is much
      stronger - your kart hardly moves at all. 

KNOWN BUGS:

    * No drive-with-the-mouse support.
    * Slow performance on CPU's less than ~450MHz.
    * After you cross the finish line, if someone overtakes you, your final
      position changes!
    * The computer players get confused and 'stuck' on tracks that
      self-intersect (eg figure-8 shaped tracks). The lap counter and
      current player positions are also screwed up on those kinds of tracks.
    * If you (or one of the computer players) goes off the edge of the track,
      or calls for rescue then tiny-tux doesn't always manage to put you
      back onto the track correctly. If this happens, you may need to type
      'R' to restart the race - Sorry.
    * Sometimes you can be pushed through a solid object if you are hit by
      another player when in contact with the surface. 

We're sure there are lots more!

DIRECTORY STRUCTURE:

src     -- Where the source code lives.

data    -- This contains all kinds of miscellaneous data
           files. Right now, this is limited to the level
           description files and lists of players vehicles.

doc     -- Documentation - all in HTML

images  -- Texture maps and other images needed by the
           game. These are currently all in 'SGI' image
           format.

wavs    -- Sound files - sound effects in 'wav' format.

mods    -- Music files - in 'mod' format.

models  -- 3D models - in '.ac' format.


# EOF #
