Tuxracer.js play Tux Racer in the browser

https://github.com/ebbejan/tux-racer-js

141•retro_guy•7mo ago

Comments

lelanthran•7mo ago

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•7mo ago

TORCS?

https://sourceforge.net/projects/torcs/

lelanthran•7mo ago

Not the same one; I remember it only had one car (red one, Mitsubishi maybe) and one track. Very much a WIP.

protonbob•7mo ago

I remember this game as well. I wish I could remember the exact name.

protonbob•7mo ago

Was it this one? https://sourceforge.net/projects/trigger-rally/

lelanthran•7mo ago

Yup :-) Still in the repo. Got a lot more tracks now too.

LevelNetDot•7mo ago

What type of racing? Drifting, simulation?

homebrewer•7mo ago

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•7mo ago

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•7mo ago

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•7mo ago

That music is stuck in my ears for so many years...

boricj•7mo ago

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•7mo ago

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•7mo ago

But you have to install Node.js to run this "in the browser"? Why isn't this just a web page?

supersparrow•7mo ago

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•7mo ago

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•7mo ago

Reminds me the Adobe Shockwave games

wavemode•7mo ago

Hearing that song again after almost 20 years made my day

A_Duck•7mo ago

Skipped playing the game just went straight to download the music

https://github.com/ebbejan/tux-racer-js/blob/main/public/ass...

exclipy•7mo ago

That's the first time I heard the song. My Linux audio drivers never worked

jml7c5•7mo ago

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•7mo ago

I have a CD copy of the game, and many fond memories playing it with the wife in the early 2000's...

Bondi_Blue•7mo ago

https://drodin.com/extremetuxracer/ https://github.com/drodin/extremetuxracer

parasti•7mo ago

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•7mo ago

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•7mo ago

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•7mo ago

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•7mo ago

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.

teruakohatu•7mo ago

This works really well on mobile. Kudos to the author.

oddevan•7mo ago

Oh, this brings back memories of interning in the IT lab at the local university.

Has anyone done Frozen Bubble?

taid9iK-•7mo ago

Yes! And let's not forget lbreakout2!

Bondi_Blue•7mo ago

https://www.y8.com/games/frozen_bubble_hd

This is a great port, but you'll want an ad blocker. It works well saved as a web app from Safari.

mkoryak•7mo ago

i enjoyed falling off the left side of the map in "finding vodka". 800 is terminal velocity

akeck•7mo ago

Is there any way to contribute levels to Tuxracer these days? I made a pair of really long ones (~10 min and ~20 min)

VoidWhisperer•7mo ago

Given that the original project (at https://sourceforge.net/p/extremetuxracer/code/HEAD if i'm not mistaken) is C++, I wonder if it is possible to port the original in some form using WASM.

This is not to take away from the work that the OP has done - it is impressive, I'm just kind of thinking out loud here.

proc0•7mo ago

Looks like it would be possible with Emscripten but I'm not sure what OpenGL version its using so that's probably the biggest dependency there.

q3k•7mo ago

I tried doing this a few years ago, mapping OpenGL 1.x primitives into WebGL was indeed a pain. There were some translation layers but they were either incomplete or targetting GLES, not classical OoenGL.

I then attempted to actually rewrite ETR to use GLES (or modern OpenGL in general), but that also turned out to be quite an effort given how the original engine/game code is structured.

proc0•7mo ago

Interesting. Sounds like a rewrite would be faster since the game itself doesn't seem that complicated.

geff82•7mo ago

Thanks for bringing me retro feelings of my first Linux days back!

kaycey2022•7mo ago

How was this done? Did the author rewrite the source in TS?

unixhero•7mo ago

Penguins also like to have fun

How to shoot yourself in the foot – 2026 edition

Eight More Months of Agents

From Human Thought to Machine Coordination

The new X API pricing must be a joke

Show HN: RMA Dashboard fast SAST results for monorepos (SARIF and triage)

Show HN: Source code graphRAG for Java/Kotlin development based on jQAssistant

Python Only Has One Real Competitor

Tmux to Zellij (and Back)

Ask HN: How are you using specialized agents to accelerate your work?

Passing user_id through 6 services? OTel Baggage fixes this

DavMail Pop/IMAP/SMTP/Caldav/Carddav/LDAP Exchange Gateway

Visual data modelling in the browser (open source)

Show HN: Tharos – CLI to find and autofix security bugs using local LLMs

Oddly Simple GUI Programs

The New Playbook for Leaders [pdf]

Interactive Unboxing of J Dilla's Donuts

OneCourt helps blind and low-vision fans to track Super Bowl live

Rudolf Vrba

Autism Incidence in Girls and Boys May Be Nearly Equal, Study Suggests

Wellness Hotels Discovery Application

NASA delays moon rocket launch by a month after fuel leaks during test

Sebastian Galiani on the Marginal Revolution

Ask HN: Are we at the point where software can improve itself?

Binance Gives Trump Family's Crypto Firm a Leg Up

Reverse engineering Chinese 'shit-program' for absolute glory: R/ClaudeCode

Indian Culture

Show HN: Maravel-Framework 10.61 prevents circular dependency

The age of a treacherous, falling dollar

Ask HN: AI Generated Diagrams

Microsoft Account bugs locked me out of Notepad – are Thin Clients ruining PCs?

How to shoot yourself in the foot – 2026 edition

Eight More Months of Agents

From Human Thought to Machine Coordination

The new X API pricing must be a joke

Show HN: RMA Dashboard fast SAST results for monorepos (SARIF and triage)

Show HN: Source code graphRAG for Java/Kotlin development based on jQAssistant

Python Only Has One Real Competitor

Tmux to Zellij (and Back)

Ask HN: How are you using specialized agents to accelerate your work?

Passing user_id through 6 services? OTel Baggage fixes this

DavMail Pop/IMAP/SMTP/Caldav/Carddav/LDAP Exchange Gateway

Visual data modelling in the browser (open source)

Show HN: Tharos – CLI to find and autofix security bugs using local LLMs

Oddly Simple GUI Programs

The New Playbook for Leaders [pdf]

Interactive Unboxing of J Dilla's Donuts

OneCourt helps blind and low-vision fans to track Super Bowl live

Rudolf Vrba

Autism Incidence in Girls and Boys May Be Nearly Equal, Study Suggests

Wellness Hotels Discovery Application

NASA delays moon rocket launch by a month after fuel leaks during test

Sebastian Galiani on the Marginal Revolution

Ask HN: Are we at the point where software can improve itself?

Binance Gives Trump Family's Crypto Firm a Leg Up

Reverse engineering Chinese 'shit-program' for absolute glory: R/ClaudeCode

Indian Culture

Show HN: Maravel-Framework 10.61 prevents circular dependency

The age of a treacherous, falling dollar

Ask HN: AI Generated Diagrams

Microsoft Account bugs locked me out of Notepad – are Thin Clients ruining PCs?

Tuxracer.js play Tux Racer in the browser

Comments