Talk:Tux Racer

Speed

the up arrow, "paddle" will slow Tux down when at a high speed

Thank God I read this page - my times have gotten better by 10 seconds in some cases. :-) Evercat 02:43, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Sunspire

Anyone know anything else about sunspire going bust? --there_is_no_spoon 12:27, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

They just quietly vanished. Their website has reverted to their domain name registrar - so they obviously weren't even selling enough stuff to justify the couple of hundred dollars a year it costs to keep the domain open and a website running! It was pretty inevitable though - they only ever made one game and it had to compete with a completely free version of the exact same game. That's a tough sell! Taking the OpenSourced version and going closed-source commercial with it lost them a LOT of friends and respect in the Linux community - that can't have helped their sales either. I don't think it was much of a 'company' in the first place - just a couple of guys who'd just left college who decided to try to make some money. As I recall, Jasmin Patry said that he and a friend had bought a copy of Maya to do better 3D modelling for the game and that they had to take it commercial in order to recoup that cost. Well, I guess that's their call - but for the quality and complexity of 3D models they used in TuxRacer, they could have used any of the free 3D modellers or AC3D ($40) rather than Maya ($1000 to $7000 depending on what options you pick!) Spending that much money on a tool - and then only using it to make one game doesn't make the best business sense. SteveBaker 12:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Gender

Isn't Jasmin Patry a 'she', rather than a 'he'?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.32.183.41 (talk • contribs) 23:01, August 29, 2006

Nope - the couple of times we met, Jasmin seemed pretty male. SteveBaker 00:15, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Screenshot

Is it just me, or does the current screenshot have some sort of clipping problem that makes it look rather weird? Wouldn't a screenshot showing tux sliding down a slope be a better representation of the game? - James Foster 15:49, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Done! SteveBaker 18:38, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Planetpenguin site down for long time

This page features a link the the Planetpenguin racer site (http://projects.planetpenguin.de/racer/). The website has been unavailable for several months now (nearly a half year now). I've checked from different locations to check that it is not my connection.

This leaves two options: 1. The site has moved. Which I hope, because it a great game, and the link needs updating. 2. The PPracer poject had died, in which case the page needs a serious overhauwl.

I don't know anybody on the inside, so if somebody could find out I'd be much oblidged...

Offtopic for Wikipedia but if someone still has a copy of the source package, we should put it up on SourceForge or something so it doesn't get lost again. I'd be happy to make that happen - but I have no idea where the sources are. SourceForge never completely deletes packages - even if they aren't active. SteveBaker 16:37, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I found a mirror of ppracer-0.3.1 over on http://www.linux-gamers.net - it includes the sources - so the game is safe on my hard drive. I'll try to find out what happened to PlanetPenguin - if it's really dead and the project didn't move anywhere else, I'll stat a ppracer project on SourceForge. Thanks for the heads-up. SteveBaker 16:56, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Updated the links, the source is out there, found it. But a sourceforge project is a great idea, because it looks like the project is dead, let me know if you're setting one up. Madder 22:52, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I have a copy of the source too, which I've modified slightly to add a configuration page where you can set the lift force of flapping. I'd like to do significant development work if you guys are interested in maintaining it as an active project. Specifically, I think we should add the following:

• Multiplayer
• Additional characters
• Swimming (add water height layer to level maps)
• Configurable average slope, from 0 to 80 degrees
• All-range mode (Allow player to move in all directions, rather than forcing down the slope)
• Configurable paddle strength, swim strength, etc. Bluej100 02:05, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea, please keep in mind though that article talk pages are for the discussion of improvement or changes that need to be made to the article. You might want to take this to a forum like linuxgames or happypenguin, you might get a bigger response there too.--Crossmr 03:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for being polite about, Crossmr. I know that this isn't the proper place. We'll get it onto Sourceforge and out of here right away. Bluej100 06:36, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Has a Sourceforge project been made for ppracer yet? If so, perhaps we should mention it in the article. StevenBell 22:11, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

PlanetPenguin Defunct

I came to mention that Planet Penguin's website was defunct, but it looks like someone beat me to it. I tried to confirm what Steve said about the sources being available on linux-gamers.net, but I could not. They are, however, available on debian. http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/p/ppracer/ppracer_0.3.1.orig.tar.gz.

There is also a 0.5 alpha version. Here is a link to the download from softpedia: http://download.softpedia.com/linux/ppracer-0.5alpha.tar.bz2

Happy Feet, Tux Racer type game?

I saw a commercial for the Happy Feet video game and it featured a 2 second spot of a mini game that looked a lot like a game of Tux Racer. Can someone confirm this? OptimumCoder 18:34, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Console?

Maybe some information about the console could be added? I ran across one at the Caribbean Resort at Disney World. It looked different from the one on the Roxor Games site (it had flipper-shaped paddle buttons) so maybe there are different versions... Unfortunately I didn't get a picture. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.179.131.104 (talk) 17:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC).

Game modifications

"Other modifications will allow Penguins to fly or achieve speeds of mach one."

I'm removing this, as it doesn't seem to add anything to the article. Tux frequently catches air, without any game modification. I've only seen speeds of mach 1 on courses like "Tux Way", which are completely flat and pointless to play. StevenBell 22:41, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

arcade!

http://stoffers.id.au/media/pics/tuxatmovieworld_small.jpg

John Vandenberg 08:07, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Planet penguin Racer/Extreme Tux Racer

We are up again with a wiki and all and are pursuing a re-release of the game with new features and multi-language support (Dutch, French, German, Swedish, English, and English(UK)so far. Our website is Planetpenguinracer.com however we are amidst a movement to our site of a new name due to our recent name change to extreme tux racer. Just making the edit.Spacedwarv 16:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Recent revert

This edit needlessly reignited the GNU/Linux naming controversy by adding in disputed terms where they aren't needed (it should be obvious that the release was for all platforms). It should be reverted. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know of any particular Wikipedia stance about the naming controversy (although I'd hope we have one) - but it's far from obvious that the game is available on all three platforms - relatively few games are, so this is a notable fact. I'd support changing GNU/Linux to just Linux or I'd support saying GNU/Linux if there is a Wikipedia ruling to that effect. (Personally, I prefer just "Linux" - but my personal preferences don't enter into it.) So I'd prefer that we said something about platform availability rather than removing this sentence in deference to some rather silly dispute. SteveBaker (talk) 14:07, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Tux Racer/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk · contribs) 18:29, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I decided to review this article. The lead doesn't accurately present information from the article. This article is trying to separate the free version from the commercial version, which in my humble opinion makes it confusing to read. Instead, the commercial version should be considered an extension of the original free version and simply treat it as a second release. This means removing the second infobox and merging the commercial version's section with the development. However The Legacy section is made up of revisions and ports, so it might be best to create a "Release Section" or "Ports and Remakes" section for all the alternate versions. So that's another option. There is no release date for the free source one in the infobox or in the article, even a year would be ok to put in the infobox.

I will continue to review the article to see if these sources are reliable and if there is any odd word-choice.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 18:29, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I advised previously that the second infobox isn't necessary and should be removed but that hasn't been addressed. So i'll request for a second opinion.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 19:48, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I was not sure what to think of it. When I submitted this article for GA, it was my intention to disambiguate the two important versions of the game (the open-source and the commercial ones), but when you brought it up on Thursday that the article should mostly focus on the free version, I was initially reluctant. However, when I thought about it, it somewhat made sense, as reception of the game was entirely about Tux Racer and, to a lesser extent, its forks, and I had not found a single critic review ever about the commercialized expansion. A few notes I would like to point out, though: 1. The photograph of the arcade cabinet comes from Flickr. Both that photograph and the file here were uploaded under the CC BY-SA license, and someone on Wikimedia Commons has yet to confirm that the license is correct. 2. One of the references used for the article appears to be a 2000s fansite for the (then-)popular computer game, and I would normally consider such sources to be unreliable. However, that particular source being used cites a transcript of an interview between the website and Jasmin Patry, the game's creator. The one thing about the purported interview is that I have little reason to suspect that it was forged. Oddly, there is no date of the interview or who the particular interviewer (if other than the website as a whole) was, but I have a reason to believe that Sunspire Studios was one of those companies that would reach out to fansites and give such interviews. They were not all famous, and the interview does appear to match with their earlier one, a source I can definitely trust. I could remove the second infobox if it really is unneeded, but personally I am curious in whether to categorize this article as "2000 video games" (the year of the open-source game) or "2002 video games" (the year of the commercial version). Gamingforfun³⁶⁵ 21:53, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

@Gamingforfun365: Sorry for the delay. It's best not to use that source since its difficult to verify who they were interviewing and what time. The commercial 2002 version should be treated as an extension of the original. I think it should be categorized as a "2000 video game". Unless there's enough evidence to prove that the commercial version has no connection with the original Tux Racer or without any permissions/approval. If I recall correctly, the arcade version is also a commercial version too. If that is the case, it would be best not to separate "commercial" version and just merge it with "Ports and remakes".Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 05:12, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

In addition, I noticed you created a video. I'm not against them, but I don't see a huge benefit of replacing the image. Luckily this is free content so either one can work. For the best of both worlds, would it be preferable to have a .gif image instead? This won't have any impact on the GA. If you prefer video then thats fine.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 05:23, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

I decided to remove the second infobox as requested, though I wondered whether we should put the commercial cover art at the top of the article or just leave it out. I also removed that second interview (which was mostly a duplicate of the earlier Imprint interview), as well as the unverified claim of the commercial game being announced in August 2000 (most likely meant 2001) and the trivial fact that Tux Racer appeared on the January 2001 PC Gamer issue (I think it's actually for the February 2001 issue, but that is not important anyway). Gamingforfun³⁶⁵ 03:13, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

As for the video, I feel that it is better than a screenshot. I produced the video illustrating the gameplay of Tux Racer because the game is free software and a video can illustrate parts of the game (e.g. physics, mechanics) that a screenshot alone cannot. A GIF would work, but it's sometimes distracting when I am reading the text instead of the image. All of this is just my personal opinion, so I suppose it does not really matter how we illustrate the game as long as everyone is satisfied. Gamingforfun³⁶⁵ 03:21, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

I won't really fight over the video since its free content. I attempted to simplify the Gameplay but I'm not sure I 100% understand the differences between Event and Cups. The manual is also littered with grammatical errors. I'll attempt to email the developers and see if they're willing to revise their manual and make it easier to understand. If you played the game, and understand what the developer was meant to say, please see if you can revise the gameplay but also choose direct and easy to understand dialogue. I'm tempted to say "par time" is jargon.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 01:42, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

I decided that this article is GA worthy and gave it a pass. Sorry for the delay.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 08:10, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

What is a fork?

i don't remember the word "fork" being used in the last review I had. What is a fork?Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk)