A critique for STK

[Tuxito3000]

SuperTuxkart from 0.0 to 0.8.1 had a more animated, colorful, and mysterious aesthetic. It felt alive and was lightweight.

Today's SuperTuxkart, yes, it's more realistic, but it lacks character and soul. It's heavier and simply incoherent.

SuperTuxKart has nearly always suffered from inconsistencies in art style due to a variety of authors and creation periods. I don't think that making things uniformly bad is a good solution, and I very much disagree about the character and soul characterization.

I suppose your computer hardware is old and very weak (I don't see another reason to mention those older versions as lightweight), which would certainly prevent enjoying SuperTuxKart 0.9 and later to the fullest, but I don't see how you can say old versions are more "animated" and "alive" when in fact there was nearly no animations at all from tracks and kart animations were extremely basic.

Also, a critique of all versions: the game has never been truly moddable. You can't modify more complex things or add new features without C++.

What can be achieved through configuration changes and custom assets exceeds the possibilities offered by most games, and with code changes anything can be achieved.

If someone wants some new feature, then code that creates this feature is required. Computer programs run on logic, not on magic.

I haven't heard anyone claim that a game isn't moddable because creating nice 3D assets for a mod requires specialized artistic knowledge, so I don't see why the less specialized knowledge of being able to compile the game and write a bit of code would preclude changes enabled by this knowledge from counting. One of the most moddable commercial games I can think of, that allows deep changes to core game logic achieved this moddability precisely by releasing some C++ files.

Now, I'm also sure it would be possible to expose more things in configuration files (I have myself added such things many times), but someone needs to do the work.

I think the strongest criticism of STK's moddability is not in mod creation, but in ease-of-use of the final result. For example, config files have to be manually replaced by the modified version, and the player needs to manually backup the original. It would be better if there was a mod folder, with each mod having its customized config files within its own subfolder, with the game's loading logic then overriding the standard version (which would always be safe) with the modified version. And related to this issue, there is also no UI to enable or disable a mod in-game.

Here you might say, "STK is a community project and doesn't have the money for better art," "it is what it is," or things like that, but the truth is simple:

I propose that we make STK lightweight, vibrant, coherent, and moddable. We just need organization.

Words are cheap. It's not a matter of "organization". If you don't have yourself the will or ability to put in the work to bring about your own vision, don't expect someone else to jump in and spend countless hours for free to do it for you.

I'm not asking someone else to do it for me; besides, I'm saying C++ is the enemy, really. We need to do something other than just AngelScript, which isn't enough. I know it's not magic, but it can be made easier, and besides, I don't have a potato PC, but I want people who do to be able to play it.