STARTING THE GAME:
Just 'cd' into the download directory and run './src/tuxkart',
or run '/usr/local/games/tuxkart' if you did a 'make install'.
Select the number of laps and which course you'd like to race
on then click 'start game' to get going.
Tux's Tollway.
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Gown's Bow.
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PLAYING THE GAME:
Ideally, you need a 'gamepad' style joystick with at leasti
six buttons:
Joystick Left/Right: Steer.
A button - Accellerate.
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:
LEFT/RIGHT ARROW: Steer.
UP-ARROW - Same as 'A' button - Accellerate
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
ENTER - Same as 'C' button - Use an item
SPACE - Pop up or Hide the menu bar.
R key - Restart the race.
P key - Pause.
X key - Exit the game.
ESCAPE- Exit the game.
There are also some debug functions left in for developers:
W key - Toggle wireframe view
Z key - Toggle statistics gathering
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.
- No way to return to title screen at end of race.
- You always play as Tux - there is no way to change players.
- After you cross the finish line, if someone overtakes you,
your final position changes!
- No "Ready, Steady, Go!" sequence.
- 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.
I'm sure there are lots more!
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