SuperTuxKart
"A 3D open-source arcade racer with a variety characters, tracks, and modes to play."- supertuxkart.net
SuperTuxKart is an open-source 3D arcade racing game developed by the SuperTuxKart Team.
History
The game originally started as another game titled TuxKart, developed Steve and Oliver Baker before it was abandoned in 2004.
Game development would later be continued by various developers-- notably Joerg Henrichs (former project leader), Benau (lead developer), Marianne Gagnon (developer), Jean-Manuel Clemençon (lead grapphical artist), Alayan (lead developer), Dawin Gan (Android port developers), and various other contributors-- as a project fork titled SuperTuxKart, and it remains under active development ever since.
Installation
SuperTuxKart is available on many platforms, including Windows, macOS, Nintendo Switch (homebrew only), and iOS (beta). On Android, the game can be downloaded through Google Play Store, F-Droid Main Repository, SuperTuxKart's official GitHub page, or the game's own official website.
As of 19 May 2025, the latest stable version of the game is 1.4.
During the game's installation, we did not experience any issues. The game itself takes up 205 MB of our phone storage, though additional assets and downloadable contents would take up additional storage.
Gameplay
Core Gameplay
SuperTuxKart is mostly reminiscent of other kart-racing video games, especially Mario Kart series. However, the game still has its own charm which makes the game stand out as more than just cheap clones.
The gameplay itself is surprisingly deep for what it is, but you should not be left entirely in the dark; when opening the game for the very first time, the game offers a tutorial which should tell you the basics of the game. In a nutshell: for normal races, you must race against other kart racers to reach the finish line first; it's a racing game.
But there's more. Throughout the track are gift boxes which grants you power-ups. These power-ups-- ranging from bowling balls, bubble gums, basketballs, and so on-- should give any racer an advantage in the race, allowing them to hit and stun other racers, slow other racers down, or otherwise hinder others from winning. Additionally, nitro bottles are also scattered throughout the track. Picking them up gives you nitro, which may be spent at any point in the race to speed yourself up.
There are also bananas which racers must avoid. Hitting them will cause you or other racers to be slowed down or given a dynamite which will then explode in time, though cunning players can pass the dynamite onto other racers to make them explode instead.
Image of the kart select and track select menu
By default, the game features 21 different race tracks with varying themes such as underwater, snow, desert, volcano, jungle, and many more. The game also features 18 different characters to play as, all of which are taken from mascots of various open-source projects. Players may also optionally download additional community-made tracks and characters from the in-game add-on pages.
Players may choose various options during track selection features. Notably, the player may choose the amount of computer-controlled racers (up to twenty racers including all players), the amount of laps during the race (up to twenty). Player may also choose the difficulty of the computer-controlled characters between four options: beginner, intermediate, advanced, and supertux.
Overall, it can be quite fun. Our interview respondent said that the game is "very fun" and with the story mode, variety of tracks, and a cast of interesting character, the game can be quite captivating for a long while.
Aside from that, the game's difficulty is also fairly balanced; the easier difficulty is easy to beat, as mentioned by our respondent, and the harder difficulty genuinely tests your skill in the game. The game is also not that hard to get into and understand, though you may need some help at first since the game is not exactly intuitive out of the box; the tutorial you are offered at the start is very important because of this.
Controls and Physics
On mobile, the controls are relatively straightforward. There are two types of control: steering wheel or accelerometer, and these can be chosen from the pause menu.
- With wheel control, you accelerate by touching the upper part of the steering wheel and steer by moving your finger left or right. Likewise, you can reverse the kart by touching the bottom part of the wheel.
- With accelerometer control, you accelerate and reverse using the accelerometer and steer by tilting the phone physically left and right.
One thing that is quite noticeable with the game physics is the turning arc. While the kart physics in the game is overall polished, our interview respondent noted that it can be quite slippery. The respondent mentioned that the arc when turning is oftentime wider than it seemed, making it hard to make sharp turns. However, this does not appear to be bad design; it's more of the case that it might take time to get used to the game's physics, but it can be solved with more practice. Other than that, not much can be said about the game's physics; it fits well with the game, though getting the hang of it would take a while of practice.
Gamemodes
The game offers various modes of play, but for the most part they can be divided into three: story mode, singleplayer, and multiplayer.
In story mode, the player will race in various tracks throughout the game in order to complete the game's story. Racing under story mode is mostly the same as racing in singleplayer, but the player cannot choose the number of races and race types freely; they are set by the level. The player may choose the difficulty of computer-controlled racers, but lower difficulty grants less points and awards.
Normally, the player unlocks more levels as they beat the previous one, but on Android all levels are unlocked at the very beginning. Furthermore, in other versions of the game, the story mode unlocks additional tracks and characters, though in the mobile version all characters and tracks are unlocked since the beginning. This does not apply to other platforms.
In singleplayer and multiplayer, the game features various race-types which the player may choose freely (except in online multiplayer, where the race type is set by the host). These race-types are:
- Normal Race: here, you are expected to race against their opponents to get to the first position. Throughout the map, there are power-ups, nitros, and hazards which can be used to hinder other racers.
- Time Trial: this functions similarly to Normal Race but without power-ups.
- Follow The Leader: you must stay as close behind the leader but without overtaking them.
- Battle: you must battle against other racers using power-ups to knock them out.
- Soccer: you push a soccer ball into their opponent's cage to score goals.
- Egg Hunt: you must find as many hidden easter eggs as possible before the others.
- Ghost Replay: in this gamemode, you can race against ghosts of your previous playthroughs.
Performance
On the lowest graphical settings, SuperTuxKart performs mostly well even on weaker hardware. During our interviews with a respondent, the game does not lag at all.
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| Screenshot of the Black Forest track. As pretty as it is, we only got 15 FPS around the moment we take the screenshot |
However, some highly-detailed tracks, particularly Black Forest, still lags even on the lowest settings. Increasing the graphical details beyond two, with advanced pipelines enabled, also tends to make the game lag. Still, this demonstrates that the game can still run even on weaker hardware, though it might struggle with really cheap or really old Android phones.
Graphics
Low graphics details (level 1) vs high graphics details (level 4). Note that in the second image, the framerate is bad enough that the game is unplayable on mobile phones
On lower graphics settings, the game's graphics is fairly decent and is reminiscent of older games from the Play Station 2 era. If higher graphics details is set (over quality level 3 in the settings), the game generally looks more sophisticated with shadows and realistic lighting effects, through the textures and models is still akin to the quality of the lower graphics details.
While the game's graphics may not be as polished, well-crafted, or high in resolution as other more popular kart-racing games, it is still fairly beautiful, especially for a free and open-source game with very little budget. The game's simpler graphics also has the advantage of making the game perform well with minimal framerate drop even on weaker hardware (except on a few occasions).
The game's overall styling is not always consistent between different tracks, especially between tracks made by different contributors. However, it is very unlikely to bother most players unless they pay plenty of attention to the game's art style while comparing each tracks one by one.
The design between every character in the game is not consistent, though this is unsurprising; all the characters in the game are mascots from various free and open source projects, such as Tux (the mascot of Linux), Gnu (the mascot of the GNU project), Konqi (the mascot of KDE Project), Kiki (the mascot of Krita), Wilber (the mascot of GIMP), Xue (the mascot of Xfce), and many more. However, the 3d rendition of these characters are relatively well-made for the game's art style.
Audio
SuperTuxKart features many different music as nearly every racetrack in the game has its own music. The music style varies and is not always consistent as most of them are composed by different composers.
For the most part, the soundtrack is pretty well-made, and it is almost comparable to soundtracks from its proprietary counterpart. Most of the soundtrack also fits well with the game.
The game also features sound effects for most actions in the game. These sound effects are relatively juvenile which fits well with the game's more arcade-y tone.
Most actions in the game has an associated sound effect which makes the game feel more lively. It is pretty difficult to say that the game is lacking in sound effects.
Story
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| The Beginning Cutscene of The Game's Story |
As mentioned before, SuperTuxKart features a basic story mode which gives the player an incentive to race in singleplayer. As the name implies, the story mode features a story, albeit a simple one to get the ball rolling: Kwolok kidnapped Gnu and intended to eat him; however, he offered to free Gnu only if Tux (or the other playable characters) can beat him in a race.
The cutscene and delivery of the story is honestly very cheesy, perhaps almost inappropriate for a finished game, though it was not crucial for the game either; you certainly won't play the game for the story, that's for sure.
Image of the hub menu area in story mode
Other than the beginning and ending cutscene, the story mostly disappears throughout the game; there is no cutscene besides the beginning and ending.The story mostly diseappears outside of the beginning and ending of the game.
Multiplayer
You can play SuperTuxKart with multiple people through three methods: splitscreen multiplayer, local network, or global multiplayer.
SPLITSCREEN MULTIPLAYER
This allows you to play with multiple people on the same device by sharing the same screen. On Android, this requires an external keyboard or gamepads.
Setting up local multiplayer (LAN server)
LOCAL NETWORK
You can also play the game together through the local network by connecting all devices with the game installed to the same local network (such as the same WiFi network) and choosing Online > Local Networking in the game menu. One device should then create the server and other devices should connect to that server. This option enables the player to play multiplayer without connecting to the internet or making an account, though it requires all player to be connected on the same local network.
GLOBAL MULTIPLAYER
You can also play multiplayer over the internet using an online account.
You can optionally create user accounts to play on public servers over the internet, but an account is not required to play in local network or to download custom contents.
The game should support up to twenty simultaneous player at the same time, though some gamemodes and battle arenas only allow fewer players.
Overall, online connectivity works well and does not require too much hassle to set-up out of the box.
Customizability
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| Custom tracks and characters added by addons |
SuperTuxKart is a very customizable game. The game allows you to install user-made contents (called addons) straight from the main menu. The addons available to install include karts, tracks, and arenas (for battle mode). The quality of user-made addons may vary between one another; some are well-made, while others may not be as polished. The game marks featured addons with a featured symbol to indicate high-quality content. The ability to install custom contents can add quite a lot of longevity into the game. Unfortunately, some of the addons, especially older arenas, are made for older versions of SuperTuxKart and may not work with the modern version of the game.
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| The UI for downloading mods |
Aside from that, users are also given a lot of freedom in terms of gameplay as they can easily choose the amount of laps and AI karts in any given race, as well as choose between different game modes. Users can also create custom grand-prix with a track of their choosing, including custom tracks.
The in-game settings also provide additional customization, allowing you to customize the graphics quality, enable graphical features like advanced pipeline and animated characters, change the interface skins, minimap placement, camera angle, controls, language, and so on.
The game also supports a large number of languages such as Indonesian, German, Esperanto, Polish, Russian, and so on.
Verdict
SuperTuxKart is one of a shining example of a video game centered around the free and open-source concept with its inclusion of various open-source project mascots. But even when assessing its merits as a video game, SuperTuxKart still delivers as a fun, shining alternative to the kart racing genre. With the ability to install custom contents, SuperTuxKart offers an endless depth of content, however its quality may be.
However, as with any kart-racing game, it is not a game that will keep you hooked for hours. It is generally a perfect game for a night with friends or a party, but not for sinking hours into. But even in singleplayer, the game is still fun to play if you can get past the mediocre graphics-- which, given that the game costs nothing, you do get what you pay for.
If you want a racing game that is free, open-source, and free of advertisements or micro-transactions, then this is the game for you.
External Links
Google Play Store - Google Play Store listing of the game
F-Droid Repo - F-Droid repository of the game
Github - The game's source code
Official Website - Mindustry's official website
Google Play Store - Google Play Store listing of the game
F-Droid Repo - F-Droid repository of the game
Github - The game's source code
Official Website - Mindustry's official website
