[HN Gopher] Tuxracer.js play Tux Racer in the browser
___________________________________________________________________
Tuxracer.js play Tux Racer in the browser
Author : retro_guy
Score : 65 points
Date : 2025-06-20 16:54 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| lelanthran wrote:
| Their used to be a racing game, around 2005 - 2008, in the Ubuntu
| repositories called Torque (or similar)?
|
| Anyone knows what happened to it?
| jadamson wrote:
| TORCS?
|
| https://sourceforge.net/projects/torcs/
| lelanthran wrote:
| Not the same one; I remember it only had one car (red one,
| Mitsubishi maybe) and one track. Very much a WIP.
| protonbob wrote:
| I remember this game as well. I wish I could remember the
| exact name.
| protonbob wrote:
| Was it this one? https://sourceforge.net/projects/trigger-
| rally/
| lelanthran wrote:
| Yup :-) Still in the repo. Got a lot more tracks now too.
| LevelNetDot wrote:
| What type of racing? Drifting, simulation?
| homebrewer wrote:
| There aren't many FOSS games from that era, are you sure about
| the name?
|
| Might it be ManiaDrive?
|
| http://maniadrive.raydium.org/index.php?downloads=yes
|
| Or vDrift?
|
| https://vdrift.net
| rezmason wrote:
| Oh, fantastic! I've tried rebuilding this for macOS half a dozen
| times, and never quite managed for one reason or another. And now
| you've brought it to the browser.
|
| I might try adding reflections and translucency to ice someday.
| Bondi_Blue wrote:
| If you want to play locally on macOS, here is a build. If it
| fails to run, it is likely the error "The requested video mode
| is not available" and can be run if connected to an external
| monitor (then you can disable fullscreen and launch without an
| external monitor).
|
| https://drodin.com/extremetuxracer/
| https://github.com/drodin/extremetuxracer
| elaus wrote:
| That music is stuck in my ears for so many years...
| boricj wrote:
| Impressive work.
|
| Maybe it's my memory from 20 years ago playing tricks on me, but
| to quote Civvie 11: "It's like playing a version of [Extreme Tux
| Racer] where everything was moved two inches or so to the left."
| pierrec wrote:
| I also played it back in the day and it seems perfectly
| accurate to me, at least in terms of control and physics. After
| a few goes I'm quickly approaching my old personal best on Who
| Says Penguins Can't Fly. One thing I'll note is that the "best
| score" display seems to be only based on time, not herrings
| (which I actually prefer, but I know that's not how you're
| supposed to play it).
| Animats wrote:
| But you have to install Node.js to run this "in the browser"? Why
| isn't this just a web page?
| supersparrow wrote:
| It could be a webpage but the developer would have to host it
| on a server somewhere (which would cost something). With the
| instructions to run it on the GitHub page, you are effectively
| running a server which is hosting the game.
| halter73 wrote:
| There's a link at the top of the README to
| https://0x00eb.itch.io/tux-racer where you can play it without
| needing to host it yourself.
| lamer3 wrote:
| Reminds me the Adobe Shockwave games
| wavemode wrote:
| Hearing that song again after almost 20 years made my day
| A_Duck wrote:
| Skipped playing the game just went straight to download the
| music
|
| https://github.com/ebbejan/tux-racer-js/blob/main/public/ass...
| jml7c5 wrote:
| I wonder if the commercial version of this (from Sunspire
| Studios) is floating around anywhere. I recall it being even more
| satisfying to play.
|
| Looks like the author has gone on to have a successful career in
| game rendering, working on (among other things) Infamous and
| Ghost of Tsushima.
| mrdonbrown wrote:
| I have a CD copy of the game, and many fond memories playing it
| with the wife in the early 2000's...
| Bondi_Blue wrote:
| If you want to play locally on macOS, here is a build. If it
| fails to run, it is likely the error "The requested video mode is
| not available" and can be run if connected to an external monitor
| (then you can disable fullscreen and launch without an external
| monitor).
|
| https://drodin.com/extremetuxracer/
| https://github.com/drodin/extremetuxracer
| parasti wrote:
| This guy ports open source games to mobile devices and sells
| them under their original names. (Selling is okay,
| misrepresenting them as the official version is not.)
| Aldipower wrote:
| Funny, I've loaded it in the browser, played it, was happy like
| kid. Then I just entered 'extremtuxracer' in my terminal and
| tada, played it locally without browser. Not to blame
| tuxracer.js, this is great. But sometimes you forget "normal"
| software.
| em-bee wrote:
| the browser version doesn't work for me, the maps are messed
| up. anyways i did the same. except i had to install it first,
| because this is a relatively new laptop. i did have it on the
| previous one and almost every machine of mine before that.
|
| i even made my own courses. one thing that i'd like to change
| is the slope. i made one course that would start in the center
| and then go in concentric circles around the starting point. it
| worked, kind of, but it was tricky. it would have worked better
| with a slope of 0 and a greater height differential from the
| highest to the lowest level. maybe some day...
| parasti wrote:
| Linux gamers from the Linux Game Tome days might enjoy learning
| that we ported Neverball to the browser (mobile, too) some years
| ago.
|
| https://play.neverball.org/
| dvno42 wrote:
| This was always a victory to teenage me after fighting with SDL
| and Nvidia drivers on Gentoo. Getting this to work with good
| framerate was always so exciting. Nostalgia hit for sure.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-06-20 23:00 UTC)