The History of SuperTuxKart

The story begins with TuxKart in April 2000. At the time, computers and especially graphic cards were much weaker than they are today, and software libraries to create games were much more limited.

Steve Baker created the game for his son Oliver Baker, who assisted him in designing some tracks. The game used PLIB, a graphics library that Steve Baker himself had created.

The final release of the original TuxKart was done in March 2004, but by that point the game had been in maintenance mode for a few years already, with new releases aiming mostly to keep it compiling with newer libraries and compilers.

In addition to the name, a few traces of this very old game still subsist in SuperTuxKart:

• The modern Oliver’s Math Class track derives from a track found in TuxKart, although nearly all aspects of the tracks have been overhauled since.
• The rescue key was introduced in TuxKart already. It has remained in SuperTuxKart despite enormous improvements to auto-rescue.
• In TuxKart green herrings would give a random penalty: a parachute or an anvil. The random parachutes and anchors that SuperTuxKart bananas can give can be traced back to this concept.
• The zipper powerup that gives a strong speed boost also traces its roots all the way to TuxKart.

In June 2004, the ‘Game of the Month’ (GotM) project of the Linux Game Tome decided to improve TuxKart.

Steve Baker was initially supportive of this community effort, however this project went off-rails with severe code quality issues that left the game unplayable, and by the end of summer most GotM participants had already moved on to other things.

In December 2004, with no interest from the original maintainer to keep the GotM changes and little active work being done, the remaining members of the project decided to preserve the current state of the project in a fork called ‘SuperTuxKart’. Meanwhile, TuxKart was restored to its previous state.

While some graphical improvements had been done, the code base itself was still very unstable and the game was practically unplayable. For more than a year, nobody worked on (Super)TuxKart.

At the time, the game didn’t offer any form of drifting. Instead, when going sufficiently fast, it was possible to do a wheelie to go even faster at the cost of not being able to turn properly. Of course, normally a wheelie is something that two-wheelers do, not karts with four wheels, but in those early days, a lot of the game was quite experimental. It was still possible to get honing missiles from the item boxes!

Marianne Gagnon (a.k.a. “Auria”) joined during the development of version 0.4. She started by improving tracks, but she would go on to expand her contributions in all the areas where she could prove useful, doing a lot of code and even composing a nice piece of music for a track she created.

An oft underappreciated part of the development of an open-source game is dealing with bug reports, reviewing changes proposed for merging by new contributors, and handling general communication with the community. Over her many years participating in the SuperTuxKart project, a large part of Auria’s contributions would be found in those tasks.

Version 0.4, released in February 2008, incorporated the Bullet physics library to improve the collision handling. A solid and realistic physics engine is an excellent basis for a racing game, as it automatically handles many situations. This inclusion would deeply shape the game: to this day, Bullet is used in SuperTuxKart.

However, a considerable quantity of adjustments and improvements would be needed to go from STK’s physics at the time of version 0.4 to the modern feel of the game, and this would be one of the main tasks Hiker would devote his efforts to over the years.

In January 2009, the SuperTuxKart blog saw its first post. Arthur, who would be involved for many years in STK as a community manager of sorts, would go on writing many of the blog’s articles.

Version 0.6 was released later the same month. It featured an improved sound system with support for positional audio, more interesting music, many new tracks and karts, and the game’s first battle arena for the newly introduced 3-Strikes-Battle multiplayer mode. Three tracks present in SuperTuxKart 1.5 (XR591, The Old Mine, and Northern Resort, then known as Snow Mountain) trace their roots back to this release!

With hindsight, the introduction of nitro in replacement of the previously existing coins was this version’s most significant innovation. The core principle behind nitro has not changed since its introduction although details have changed a lot: it is collected in cans located around the track, and can be used at any time by the player to get a speed boost.

Nitro has since become a core part of SuperTuxKart’s identity, bringing a unique element compared to many other kart racing games and giving an important way for players to express their skill, both when collecting nitro and when using it.

Wheelies were removed from the game and replaced by a sharp turning feature also called skidding. Sharp turning was quite different from the drifting that would replace it in later versions, as it only helped a kart to take tighter curves, without any possibility for a speed boost. The resulting kart handling when it was in use was also very different. Physics also saw another round of improvements.

The revised set of powerups was also a major step towards SuperTuxKart’s later identity. Gone were TuxKart’s missiles, homing missiles, and fuzzy blobs (yes, that’s the official name of a TuxKart item), gone was the anvil. The plunger, the bowling ball, the cake, and the bubblegum made their first appearance.

The balancing of powerups to provide a moderate comeback mechanism and to simply provide fun to the players still had a long way to go, however.

SuperTuxKart 0.6 also featured explicit support for addons with a system of kart and track groups. At the time there was no online addon repository, addons had to be installed manually, but the game could now differentiate between standard content and addons.

Two minor versions in the 0.6 series were released afterwards, 0.6.1 in February 2009 and 0.6.2 in July 2009. They mostly brought bugfixes as well as some new karts, without the additional features that would characterize many later STK point releases.

Unbeknownst to the SuperTuxKart team at the time, the game was used in a machine-learning paper that would go down in history as a landmark paper in this field.

Since its beginnings, SuperTuxKart’s open nature has made it an ideal playing ground for many experiments, academic papers, and technical demonstrations.

Jean-Manuel Clémençon (a.k.a. ‘Samuncle’ or ‘Sam’) joined during the development process of version 0.7, having been dared to do better after criticizing existing tracks. The first track he authored for SuperTuxKart was Hacienda, an iconic track that is still very popular to this day among online players despite its now dated looks.

Soon before the release of version 0.7, SuperTuxKart crossed over one million downloads on SourceForge. The precise number of downloads for SuperTuxKart will forever remain a mystery, as a considerable number of Linux users from this period of high popularity for the game got it through their distribution’s package manager. On SourceForge, the Linux packages were only a small minority of downloads. SourceForge stats also indicate that SuperTuxKart had been downloaded from nearly every country in the world.

Version 0.7 was released on December 20, 2010. It contained many significant improvements, including:

• The use of Irrlicht as a new 3D rendering engine,
• Track animations,
• A new GUI (Graphical User Interface),
• New tracks and kart,
• A new powerup, the switch, or swapper, which would temporarily transform positive on-track items (such as gift boxes) into negative ones (such as bananas). This powerup has been present in all SuperTuxKart versions ever since.

For the first time in SuperTuxKart’s history, the game had support for alternative paths, allowing track-designers to split paths for a section of the track and to add officially allowed shortcuts.

Before 0.7, SuperTuxKart relied on a shortcut detection logic that prevented such designs, at least when it worked (as some unintended significant shortcuts were possible in 0.6).

The challenges of Irrlicht’s integration didn’t stop with 0.7 being released, however.

A number of limits set in the library headers were rather low for the graphical needs of SuperTuxKart, and so the SuperTuxKart team used increased values. This should have been a straightforward solution. Certain Linux distributions, however, insisted on building SuperTuxKart to use the system’s Irrlicht library instead, which had the lower values. This led to a broken experience for the end users and to a lot of time wasted with bug reports that weren’t the fault of SuperTuxKart’s team.

These distributions were adamant that SuperTuxKart should use the system-provided version of the library, arguing that the SuperTuxKart team should ask the library developers to change their defaults. The maintainers of Irrlicht were not interested in such a change, as they saw the lower values as useful for less ambitious projects that were also using their library.

This created a double bind for the SuperTuxKart team, which would only be resolved when, after a long period of shipping a broken STK, those distributions relented and accepted to simply use SuperTuxKart’s bundled Irrlicht.

Similar experience with other libraries, in particular with the physics engine from Bullet, are why, to this day, SuperTuxKart comes with several bundled libraries. The potential benefits from minor updates to system libraries are dwarfed by the potential for unforeseen bugs they create.

Let’s mention in passing that system libraries were something that already caused a fair number of issues at the time of the original TuxKart, with Steve Baker noting in 2004 that “problem reports […] dropped to almost zero” after he decreed a single correct location to install PLIB and the use of static-linking.

The playerbase at large, however, appreciated very much the game improving again and again. And in the long run, wouldn’t people be more willing to put in effort to contribute if they love the game?

Over the course of 2011, three new versions were released, each bringing new tracks as well as new karts. They also brought their own share of bugfixes and features.

Stephen Just also took over the management and improvement of the addons website.

To mention only the most significant additions, version 0.7.1 in April brought a temporary invincibility for karts that got hit, internet news, debug features for track makers and in-game option to switch language, while version 0.7.2 in July brought an in-game addon manager.

Version 0.7.3, in November 2011, was a particularly significant release, bringing three new tracks, a new kart, and two new powerups, the swatter and the rubber ball. Both still exist in SuperTuxKart 1.5 (the rubber ball having since become the basket ball), and they represent the last two powerup additions to the game before SuperTuxKart Evolution.

For the next version, the team’s biggest objective was the addition of a Story Mode with an overworld.

Until then, SuperTuxKart had featured a set of challenges that could be progressively completed and that would allow the unlocking of more karts and tracks. However, these challenges lacked cohesiveness.

In December 2012, SuperTuxKart 0.8 was released with the new Story Mode.

Cutscenes with a basic story, a vast free roam area with several different themes through which challenges could be accessed, new challenges connected with a point system: at the time, it was a vast improvement.

The limitations of this system would become apparent over the years, however. The visual quality of the cutscenes and the overworld would fall behind the rest of the game, and improvements for tracks ended up always taking priority.

The overworld also lacked flexibility, with several areas meant to represent a specific track that relied on said track remaining in SuperTuxKart, and no satisfying way to add multiple new challenges. While the concept had high potential, it required a sustained artistic effort that STK couldn’t meet.

With hindsight, some other important changes brought with version 0.8 would have greater consequences.

Most importantly, the modern drifting mechanic was introduced, replacing the sharp turn mechanic present since 0.6. The relevant input would initiate a hop that helped to turn sharper, and holding it would allow the kart to accumulate a boost, with a simple trade-off: once the drift was initiated, the kart would continue turning in the drift direction until it was released, with only moderate adjustments to the sharpness of the turn remaining possible.

Drifting already had a second stronger boost level that could be activated with a long drift. The biggest difference between what drifting was then and what it would become in 1.0 is arguably visual: instead of particles emitted from the back wheels, it used the same generic exhaust location in the back of the kart as nitro, and the second drift level produced a green exhaust!

Of course, the AI used by computer players also had to be significantly revised to take advantage of the new mechanics. Auria and Hiker judged the improved AI so strong that the version available in Expert difficulty had some purposeful limitations added.

Devee, who would go on to become an important contributor to the game, joined the SuperTuxKart team during this period, with a focus on bugfixes and minor enhancements.

SuperTuxKart 0.8.1, released in November 2013, brought many more important changes than the version name would suggest.

It had some new and improved tracks and karts, and it included the new graphical effects from the GSoC project, of course, as well as many small changes and fixes, including a minimum duration for nitro bursts, but it also introduced major innovations that shape SuperTuxKart to this day:

• Soccer mode, which at the time could only be played in local multiplayer, and Egg Hunt mode.
• The bubble gum shield. Previously, gums could only be dropped as an obstacle on the road, from 0.8.1 onwards they could also serve as a defensive item.
• SuperTux difficulty, after players clamored for the limitations on 0.8’s Expert difficulty to be removed.
• A new speedometer and nitro gauge that would last until STK 0.9.3. They were quite inaccurate, but they would serve as the inspiration for their modern counterparts.

It was also starting with STK 0.8.1 that the blue nitro exhaust started coming out of the kart’s nitro emitter and that drift particles were emitted from the kart’s wheels, with the second level adopting a red hue.

The major undertaking for the release to come, initially codenamed 0.8.2, was however a new graphics engine, based on Irrlicht but very heavily modified.

This new engine required OpenGL 3.1 (from 2009) instead of OpenGL 2 (from 2004), which raised concerns from some players, but it was a necessary step to be able to take advantage of the considerable progress of GPU technology during this period. The old renderer would remain available as a fallback.

Through the work of Cand and vlj, SuperTuxKart’s graphical capabilities increased considerably: dynamic lighting, shadows, instanced rendering (allowing for a large increase in vegetation), texture compression (greatly reducing vRAM usage), image-based lighting, god rays, depth-of-field, and more.

Version 0.9 was released in April 2015, powered by its new graphics engine, Antarctica.

Two new high-quality tracks, Cocoa Temple and Gran Paradiso Island showcased the potential of Antarctica, while several other tracks received updates to take advantage of some of the new features.

This version also brought four new karts, a basic online system with friends and achievements, a Grand Prix editor, and the kart properties and physics changed discussed earlier, along with the usual bugfixes and enhancements.

Version 0.9 the first version to use a separate configuration folder: all the versions until then used the same configuration directory, which worked for minor version update but created problems when launching a different version could potentially erase data from the newer ones.

It was also the first one to feature a gift package for donators. SuperTuxKart had received some donations over the years, but there was no formal process for it until then.

The premise was simple: early access to a new track, in this case Antediluvian Abysses, as a thank you for supporters, with the promise that it would be made available for free to everyone in an upcoming version. This first package also featured some concept arts and a night-time version of Cocoa Temple.

The funds raised allowed to cover the costs of the project’s online infrastructure as well as to fund some newer pieces of hardware for the developers.

SuperTuxKart 0.9.2 was released in July 2016. As promised in the initial gift package announcement, Antediluvian Abysses was made freely available in the base game, with further enhancements compared to its first revision.

Worth a mention in this general overview of STK’s history is also considerable work on the internal handling of kart properties by Flakebi, bringing the game a step closer to the changes that would come with 1.0 and with Evolution.

This version also came with a new music for the farm track. Ah, music! Since the beginnings of SuperTuxKart, the soundtracks that play during races have been a core part of the experience, and tunes used in old versions are often one of their most nostalgic aspect for those who played them growing up.

Usually, music is one of the easiest thing to source for use in SuperTuxKart when it comes to artistic content with libre-licensing, as it can often fit even if it was not specifically designed for the game.

Nonetheless, tunes made specifically for the game have helped improving it further: no history of SuperTuxKart would be complete without mentioning 0zone0ne who composed original music for most of Samuncle’s new generation tracks, helped by Krobonil in some cases.

In February 2017, SuperTuxKart launched a campaign to get accepted on the digital game distribution service Steam through Steam Greenlight. While there were some hurdles regarding the code’s licensing and the integration of Steam features, as well as the general paperwork involved with such a move, distribution of the game through Steam had been a common request.

At the time, games needed players to express their interest for them through Steam Greenlight before they were eligible for inclusion on the platform. A few months later, this system would be replaced by a fee system for game publishers.

Within a day, SuperTuxkart had risen in the top 100 most demanded games on Greenlight, and within a week it had been greenlit by Steam.

Of course, this brings up a question: how come that, nearly ten years later, SuperTuxKart still isn’t available through Steam?

Sam had been the main member within the SuperTuxKart team to push in this direction. When his involvement diminished, the goal of a Steam release became secondary compared to other tasks surrounding the game. The lingering questions around paperwork, licensing, and Steamworks integration were also stumbling blocks that a small volunteer team would not be eager to tackle.

SuperTuxKart 0.9.3, released in October 2017 with a halloween-themed gift package, would conclude the successful series of releases from the Antarctica era. The longer period since the previous release also meant a larger number of improvements and fixes.

Most significant was perhaps the new SPM format by Benau for 3D models used by STK, supplemented by improvements in the game’s RAM usage and render pipeline. Benau also created two karts for the game, something reminiscent of the early days of SuperTuxKart when the division between coders and visual artists was blurred.

Alayan joined the SuperTuxKart team during this period. He had been occasionally involved in the game in earlier years, having helped bring awareness to some issues and exploits, such as how extremely short nitro bursts could be abused, with a first commit merged in 2014.

He started contributing intensively in 2018. As a high-level SuperTuxKart player who had been competing for time-trial records and story-mode speedruns, he brought a different perspective to the team.

At the time, much of the communication around SuperTuxKart’s development happened in the project’s IRC channel, and this is where many new ideas were discussed.

While bugfixes and UI improvements ended up being a large part of Alayan’s work in the lead up to 1.0, improving gameplay to address known shortcomings was his main motivation.

Within the constraints set for 1.0 (such as no new powerup), the gameplay received considerable refinement. Key points included kart class balancing, a better powerup distribution, revised slipstreamings, AI improvements, and physics fixes; with many finer points too. A blog post from the time gives a general overview.

Finally, ghost replays received a large number of improvements, and the Story Mode and its challenges saw a thorough revision. Suzanne’s reputation as a formidable driver in her Cocoa Temple challenge finds its roots here.

Of course, with hindsight, it’s easy to say that even more improvements would have been possible. Some of the issues that became apparent after months and years of online multiplayer had been obscured by much more pressing ones. But the leap from 0.9.3 to 1.0 was considerable.

Interestingly, for a long time, it was not decided to call the upcoming version 1.0! Soon after 0.9.3, a potential 0.9.4 was considered. Perhaps more significantly the beta release made available in January 2019 carried the name 0.10, a trace of which is still found in the ‘config-0.10’ folder used by the game.

A few weeks before 1.0’s final release, SuperTuxKart was used by Mercedes in a public demo to showcase the infotainment system of their new cars, to very positive reception from the press.

The final release of SuperTuxKart 1.0 in April 2019 was the culmination of all these efforts, officially bringing online multiplayer to the game.

In addition to everything discussed thus far, it came with a slew of bugfixes and improvements, as well as two new tracks: Ravenbridge Mansion by Sam and Black Forest by Sven, who made here his first contribution to SuperTuxKart. Sven would go on to become SuperTuxKart’s new lead artist.

The release of SuperTuxKart 1.0 received a fairly large press coverage compared to previous versions: in addition to the many Linux outlets that have often covered new releases, various outlets covering general news also reported on it.

Indeed, despite this policy, the amount of changes and improvements brought with each release was still considerable. Version 1.1 was released in January 2020, with STK 1.2 following in August 2020, STK 1.3 in September 2021, and STK 1.4 in October 2022. For each of those, it is impossible to give a brief yet fair summary of the changelog, but we can observe a few general trends and standout features:

• Several new high-quality karts. Each kart was replacing another kart with the exact same gameplay characteristics (and internal name), preserving compatibility.
• Three new arenas.
• A Switch Homebrew port as well as support for iOS and Windows on ARM.
• Many enhancements to networking functionalities. When 1.0 was released, online multiplayer was functional, but barebones. IPv6 support, lobby commands, better support for addons, server management features, and more were introduced in subsequent versions.
• The adoption of SDL2 for screen creation allowed gamepad hotplugging and wider gamepad support. Version 1.3 also brought support for gamepad force feedback.
• A considerable number of bugfixes. In a project as complex as SuperTuxKart, the number of edge cases that can cause anything from small visual issues to crashes is tremendous. Many bugs are unnoticeable until the moment they severely disrupt a player’s experience.
• The game window became resizable via the operating system’s window controls, although only on select screens. 1.5 would later extend this to all screens.
• Some general improvements to graphics, such as performance optimizations, support for render resolution upscaling, a screen space reflection effect, and better respawn animation for on-track items. Benau also introduced an experimental Vulkan renderer.
• An enormous amount of UI improvements. Those improvements were typically iterative. Each new release still felt like the same game, yet the game got improvements such as a font-size selector, emoji support, in-game tips, a minimap indicator for basketballs, visual and auditive feedback for timers running out, and many more. Version 1.2 even brought an alternative theme with its own iconset. Support for unusual resolutions greatly improved as well.
• A system to allow mobile users to download higher-quality assets that couldn’t fit in the release package.

During this era, addon creation also flourished. The promise to not only be able to play a track locally, but to also enjoy it with others online, spurred creativity. The number of addons available in the official SuperTuxKart addons repository grew from a few dozens to a few hundreds. While many are rather basic, a fair number have come with good gameplay and interesting theming.

Online multiplayer proved to be a great success for SuperTuxKart, with many people playing with others from all over the world in public servers, but also with people using private servers to play with family and friends.

Some server hosters also chose to extend the default server capabilities with custom features they were interested in, taking advantage of SuperTuxKart’s open nature.

Since the ranking reset that coincided with version 1.2, over ten thousand players have participated in online ranked races, with more than 500 players who played at least 100 ranked races.

There have also been challenges, however. As the skill differences between experienced and new players can be considerable in STK, first-time players would often get soundly beaten without even the illusion of having a chance. This can be quite discouraging. Ideally, this is solved with some form of match-making, but that in turn requires a sizeable amount of players to be playing at the same time as well as additional mechanisms.

As a team-based mode, which has sometimes been likened to a simpler Rocket League, SuperTuxKart’s soccer mode also benefited greatly from the introduction of online multiplayer, giving birth to a small but dedicated soccer community.

This enthusiasm led to fan-organized SuperTuxKart soccer tournaments every few months, and a flourish of new playing fields added to the addons.

Additional changes that had not been planned came into being, such as three new egg hunts and improvements to the display of distant shadows.

Yet the crucial question of when to release remained a topic of contention, made worse by difficulties in communication, an issue sadly all too common across all kinds of projects. Concerns over the stewardship of some project resources were also present.

For a short period of time, there was open division. Thankfully, however, this crisis provided the impetus to bridge the differences and clear some misunderstandings. With the good of the project in mind, a solution was found.

The game’s addons server, which also manages online play, was moved to a more powerful server better capable of handling the game’s online services.

In October 2025, SuperTuxKart 1.5 was released, after an unusually long wait, but with a substantial amount of changes. Among the most significant ones not mentioned earlier in this overview: three new soccer fields designed by CrystalDaEevee and five new UI themes.

This release was accompanied by a new gift package, featuring a preliminary version of two new tracks designed for SuperTuxKart Evolution.

Benau and Devee, whose involvement in the project was already reduced, officially left the STK team, their many years of contribution still living on in the game itself.

BcfWorld, who had helped transfer STK Addons to the new stronger server, became part of the SuperTuxKart team, his core focus being the management of the game’s online services, and looking into ways to improve them after a period of relative neglect.

Since then, while the main efforts have been directed towards SuperTuxKart Evolution, a substantial number of bugfixes and minor improvements that don’t affect compatibility have been merged in SuperTuxKart’s code.

A SuperTuxKart 1.5.1 release is currently planned to bring those improvements to the players.

In late 2023, the first basis for what was then still codenamed 2.0 had been set, with Sven’s alpha versions of some new tracks and improvements to some track, and with Alayan’s experimental gameplay changes in a new branch.

Work continued intermittently throughout 2024, and arrangements were being made to be able to dedicate more time to the game, in order to make a new major release feasible in a reasonable timeframe, and a clearer picture began to emerge on as to the scope of the changes.

Unlike previous releases that typically added or improved two or three tracks, a kart or two, sometimes featuring a powerup or a significant change to one game mechanic, the aim was to revise and renew every aspect of the game players regularly interacted with. Not only several new tracks, but also meaningful updates to every track remaining in the game. Not only new powerups, but changes to existing ones too. Not only nicer menu elements, but a new flow through the menu screens. And so on and so forth.

It’s in those circumstances that the qualifier of 2.0 began to feel inadequate.

It would too easily have been seen as a mere update among others, if a bit more important.

On the other hand, continuity in code and assets is the industry norm between a game and its sequel. It is simply much more efficient and reliable to build on what already exists and works than to redo everything from scratch. SuperTuxKart is no exception.

Video games are also different from most other types of software in this respect. A new release doesn’t necessarily make the old version obsolete. The old game often has some unique elements going for it, in its story or gameplay, that can make it worth playing even after a new game from the same series is out. Morrowind and Oblivion have their own unique environment and set of quests that gave them appeal even after Skyrim’s release. Civilization IV has some gameplay qualities that none of the three newer games in the series could make obsolete. Examples are endless.

Three things make a game really new: the decision of its authors to consider it as such, substantial changes in its story or its gameplay, and the consequent need for a new user profile (contrasting with iterative updates that allow the continuity of in-game progress).

In this light, we consider SuperTuxKart Evolution a new game.

Part of the same game series as previous SuperTuxKart releases, of course, yet new all the same.