SuperTuxKart 1.5 release

SuperTuxKart’s 1.5 is now available!

You will find the official binaries for Windows, Linux, Mac and Android on our download page.

 
SuperTuxKart 1.5 official trailer

Gift package

From 0.9 to 0.9.3, each new release of SuperTuxKart was accompanied by a gift package containing new tracks, that would later make their way in the main game. Tracks such as Cornfield Crossing and Ravenbridge Mansion were first available that way.

For STK 1.5, we are once again making a donation package available: anyone giving at least 5$ will receive early access to two new tracks designed for SuperTuxKart Evolution: Drainage Dash and Freytra Peaks.

Gift package poster

See our donate page for details.

Eggs and themes

Three new egg hunts in Black Forest, Gran Paradisio Island and The Old Mine invite curious players to explore and look at the tracks from new angles. In higher difficulties, some locations will truly challenge your wits!

One of the new egg hunts

Soccer mode is quite popular in online multiplayer, and it now receives three new official fields – Oasis, Hole Drop and XR-4R3N4.

Tracks themselves remain the same for the sake of compatibility, except for the fixing of a few checkline exploits.

Meanwhile in the overworld, the sun is setting. As a last hurrah after more than ten years of presence in STK releases, it has received a set of small visual improvements.

XR-4R3N4

The user interface will be very familiar to players of previous versions, yet many changes are present. The game window can now be resized in almost any screen. Preset window sizes, the fullscreen toggle and camera options are now located in a new display tab.

The dynamic display system when selecting a kart, track, or game mode, is much better at showing the optimal number of items accounting for screen size, reducing the need for scrolling. Search bars, a kart class filter and a quick access random track button also help.

Minor changes include better support for unusual aspect ratios, improved contrast for some UI elements, fixes for overflow issues that could occur with some translations, time warnings with color and sound indicators in time-limited modes, colored score indicators for battles, and keyboard navigation fixes.

More directly noticeable are six new themes, doubling the number of UI skins available compared to 1.4. The classic theme gets a new Desert variant, while the Cartoon theme gets five new variants, matching the colors of the classic theme. Each of those themes come with a background picture showing a scene from one of STK’s tracks.

Cartoon Forest theme

Features and Fixes

SuperTuxKart now offers the possibility to mark tracks and karts as favorites. Marked with a heart, favorites are automatically shown first for quicker selection and are also available in a dedicated tab.

Several audio improvements are also present. The improved sound scale allows headphone users to easily pick the ideal sound level. In-race, the switch powerup sound is global to help players avoid bad surprises, while some issues related to the pause menu (some sounds playing during pauses, and the last-lap music sometimes missing) have been resolved.

Favorite tracks

Game graphics have also seen progress, with several changes bringing improved visuals for negligible performance cost. This is supported by several code changes alleviating inefficiencies in the game’s graphics loop, helping performance in complex tracks.

For example, the game now uses x16 anisotropic filtering on all but the lowest settings, getting rid of the blur often present with x2 and x4 filtering for a barely measurable FPS drop of 1-2 %.

Improved level of details (LoD) and shadow mapping logic allow to significantly reduce the occurrence of distracting pop-in, or effectively eliminate it using new higher settings. Several shaders have also been fixed or improved to provide better image quality.

Parachute and Bubblegums come with a new nicer spawn animation, and karts in night tracks can make use of a new spotlight lighting effect.

Still, some new options are meant for users with discrete GPUs and performance to spare : 1.5 offers 2048 resolution shadows, percentage-closer soft shadows, and even the option to render at a higher-than-native resolution, improving finer details.

The built-in frame-limiter can also be configured by the player. Instead of always being at 120, it can be set as low as 30 and as high as 1000.

Supersampling

All these changes to graphics are accompanied by a new benchmark mode.

A previous blog post dove deeper into the details, but in short it helps players to measure the performance effect of various settings on their particular machine, while also being able to more easily compare how different machines perform.

It is also useful for development, allowing us to more easily ascertain the performance effect of some changes and to optimize the graphics presets for ordinary users.

The benchmark end screen

As always, many code changes under the hood are less exciting to talk about and describe, but they play an important role in keeping the project going: correction of various bugs, code quality improvements making future changes easier and helping to prevent future bugs, updates to the build system to keep the game compiling fine with newer libraries, compilers and operating systems, etc.

In the replay section, 1.5 players will also find the glitchless time-trial world records for each track included.

Finally, SuperTuxKart 1.5 offers several new langages. Filipino, Rusyn and Welsh have full translations, while partial translations are available for Hindi, Bengali and Georgian alongside the new fonts needed to render their scripts.

As usual, a more detailed list can be found in the changelog and looking at tickets solved for 1.5.

I also want to say thank you to everyone who contributed to the release through code, assets, bug reports or translations.

Future development

It is now almost 20 years since Hiker, STK’s former project leader, began working on the game. Over the years, the code, assets and gameplay changed so dramatically it is in some ways more appropriate to talk of different games in the same series.

After SuperTuxKart 1.0 released with support for online multiplayer, releases focused on iterative improvements while preserving gameplay compatibility. In comparison, SuperTuxKart 1.5 offers a lot of polish, new features, and bug-fixes, but it is still unmistakably the same game.

Now, developpment moves on to SuperTuxKart Evolution, with the aim of retaining the core of what so many players enjoy in SuperTuxKart, while bringing a fresh playing experience through a myriad of new elements and changes.

In the meantime, enjoy STK 1.5 !

SuperTuxKart Evolution Roadmap

Along with the announcement of SuperTuxKart Evolution, we promised that we would release a roadmap for the project.

Here it is, with our team walking a thin line between the urge to share good news and the need to not over-promise. There is a reason, after all, while vague promises and "coming soon" announcements are so common.

As a brief reminder, SuperTuxKart Evolution is the name of the project’s next major release. With all the changes we are hard at work bringing to life, we see it as a new game within the same series, rather than as a mere update.

General Overview

We'll share timeline estimates once we have a better grip on how long these features actually take to implement.

We could list every GitHub issue we're tackling and every texture we're planning to update, but that would turn this roadmap into a technical specification that nobody wants to read. Instead, we'll cover the major pieces here and save the detailed breakdowns for future blog posts, where we can properly explain why seemingly simple changes often lead us down unexpected rabbit holes.

We will color the panels as our work progress and we release more focused announcements.

New karts

SuperTuxKart Evolution will increase the roster of characters you can pick from. Mr. Iceblock will make a comeback in STK, and brand new characters will also be present.

Existing karts will also receive love to make the graphical and animation quality more uniform.

New User Interface

SuperTuxKart's current UI gets the job done, but, after years of incremental changes, it's starting to show its age. We're rethinking the interface from the ground up, building a new foundation rather than merely applying a new coat of paint.

A professional designer has approached us to help guide this process, and we are grateful to benefit from his vast experience. The new interface will include proper animations to guide user focus, scalable icons that look crisp across all display resolutions, and navigation that hopefully makes sense to people who haven't spent years learning our current system's quirks. Whether we can deliver all the improvements we aim at in our intended timeframe remains to be seen, but we're cautiously optimistic.

New tracks & Update to Existing Tracks

Tracks are the core of a racing game: we’re creating new environments to immerse yourself in and race through. Each track presents its own unique set of challenges both for players trying to master them and for us trying to make them actually work.

Here's a glimpse of our new tracks:

• Alpine Valley,
• Freytra Peaks (formerly known as Snow Weeks),
• Drainage Dash (codename, final name pending),
• A completely new Fort Magma,
• At least four more that we’re not ready to name yet.

Drainage Dash

A few tracks will be removed between STK 1.5 and SuperTuxKart Evolution, but most others will stay. However, even there expect many changes:

• New textures,
• Improved models,
• Balance improvements,
• Addressing known issues for a smoother experience,
• And more.

We'll share more details on these tracks as they progress through our development pipeline and approach release readiness.

Freytra Peaks and Drainage Dash will be made available to donators in a gift package that will accompany 1.5’s release.

New Story Mode

The overworld from SuperTuxKart 0.8 won't be making the transition to Evolution. While we could rebuild it to match our current quality standards, the development time required would mean fewer new tracks.

Instead, we're building a completely new Story mode that ditches the overworld approach in favor of a more focused experience:

• Over 40 challenges,
• New cutscenes and plotline,
• New challenge types,
• A redesigned tutorial.

Improved Gameplay

Getting the gameplay to feel right is one of those things that's hard to quantify but impossible to ignore. SuperTuxKart 1.0 smoothed out many rough edges, and Evolution builds on years of player feedback while adding new elements to keep things interesting.

Unless you’re a long-time STK fan, you’re probably not keen for all the details, so here are the highlights: a new third drifting level (for those who master the first two), a smarter racing AI featuring AI personalities, and at least three new powerups. Many of these changes are already implemented in our experimental branch if you want to see the technical details.

Other

There are many further elements that don’t fit neatly in the previous major categories, but are still important for the game. We are not forgetting about them.

Conclusion

We'll be sharing regular development updates as we work through this roadmap: talk is cheap, and we'd rather show you what we're creating.

SuperTuxKart Evolution stands on SuperTuxKart which itself stands on the shoulders of over two decade of contributors who built the foundation we're expanding on.

If you'd like to join that tradition by contributing code, art, or simply joining the conversation, reach out to us or register on our new forum.

We'll also announce donation options soon for those who want to support the team for the time it dedicates to development.

More updates will come as we make progress.

1.5-rc2 released, new Forum, and more !

The SuperTuxKart team is glad to announce that the resources we feared might be lost have now been successfully transferred.

This means in particular a continuity of online services for STK players and access for the team to important tools of outreach.

For the SuperTuxKart project, this is the best outcome possible.

While we wish this could have happened more smoothly, last week’s shakeup unlocked the situation, and the shared interest from all parties in seeing the project thrive has allowed to clear things up and to reach a common understanding.

I want to personally thank Benau, who has shown great character in seeking this positive resolution.

SuperTuxKart 1.5-rc2 released

SuperTuxKart 1.5-rc2 is now available for download.

Compared to the previous release candidate, it essentially features bug fixes : new features are avoided in the RC period.

One small exception is a toggle in the advanced graphics settings allowing users to pick the game’s rendering engine without having to manually edit a configuration file. The game’s default rendering engine remains OpenGL, as it’s currently more feature-complete.

New Forum

We are pleased to announce to the community the official opening of our new forum.

This new forum replaces the previous forum hosted by FreeGameDev, that became read-only in the fall of 2024.

It offers a place for players to have more involved discussions than on instant messaging groups, for contributors to showcase their creations, and for everyone to communicate with the development team.

Improved online server

SuperTuxKart online services — such as creating online accounts, retrieving the list of online servers, and downloading addons — rely on a server provided by the STK team.

On Thursday 4th, they have been successfully migrated to a new, more powerful server. For players, there is nothing to do: the game will automatically connect to the new server when you need to access online services.

This change addresses the issue of sporadic overloads observed in past months, that would occasionally disconnect game servers during races.

It also incidentally make the game snappier in some situations where it waits on an answer from the main server, such as loading the list of servers.

Conclusion

Please report bugs you might find in the rc2 release, and don’t forget to register on our forum to discuss about the game.

Stay tuned for upcoming SuperTuxKart news: 1.5 release, SuperTuxKart Evolution’s roadmap, and more.

Announcing SuperTuxKart Evolution

A new major game version bringing a fresh experience with heaps of new content and plenty of improvements : that’s what many STK players have been waiting for, and it’s what the SuperTuxKart Evolution project aims to bring about.

The STK team has a vision for this next great step in SuperTuxKart’s journey, and we are committed to bring it to life, honoring the legacy of those whose work allowed SuperTuxKart to become an icon of open-source and Linux gaming.

STK Evolution's logo

The SuperTuxKart Evolution project is led by Sven, our lead artist, and by myself, Alayan, our lead game designer.

We have already thought and worked on many of those changes, and a roadmap detailing our plans will be made available in an upcoming update alongside further details.

What about 1.5?

UPDATE 02/09/25: We are happy to announce that over the last few days, we managed to get some misunderstandings cleared and to find common ground with Benau, who became co-leader of STK in 2019. The sections below have been amended to reflect this. A further announcement will follow.

If you have been following the project in recent times, you may be wondering when the promised 1.5 version is coming. The release candidate came out almost 3 months ago.

The code was pretty much ready, but misunderstandings hampered communication and trust, preventing the team from agreeing on a release timeline and freezing progress.

UPDATE 02/09/25: Despite some differences in vision, both sides want SuperTuxKart to go on. As a result of the agreement we reached, much of previous concerns over project resources are not relevant anymore. There will still be a few changes, but on the basis of technical merit.

As indicated in the previous version of this announcement, we aim to release 1.5 soon, but it is now planned to be a joint release with the cooperation of Benau and Devee, as we had long hoped for.

Closing words

This announcement is bittersweet, as the promise of a renewed development effort is mixed with news of trouble within the team. Thankfully, wisdom and understanding appear set to prevail.

SuperTuxKart Evolution is an ambitious project, but we already have demonstrated our capabilities with our past contributions, and we intend to prove our seriousness through hard work, regular updates on the game’s development, and ultimately a great release.

We also wish to renew communication with and between people who enjoy SuperTuxKart. We plan on opening a new forum very soon for this purpose.

If you have further questions, you can direct them in the comments below.

Release Candidate for SuperTuxKart 1.5

The SuperTuxKart team is happy to announce the first release candidate for SuperTuxKart 1.5.

Several months have elapsed since the release of the 1.5 beta version, and more changes than we initially anticipated have delayed the release. Our contributors have been busy with their lives beyond the game, and since 1.5 is the last planned release of the 1.x series, there is always one more bugfix or feature that would be nice to add.

You can download binaries for Linux, Windows, Mac and Android here : https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-code/releases/tag/1.5-rc1

The final 1.5 release announcement will dwelve more into the improvements since the last major release and I invite interested users to consult the changelog for more details, but since the beta release, the game has received, in addition to many bugfixes and minor features:

• Better display of karts, tracks and game modes, eliminating or reducing the need to scroll to see the available options,
• Improved animations for the parachute and bubblegum shield,
• Graphical enhancements to the overworld as a good-bye to the 1.x Story Mode,
• New egg hunts on three tracks (Black Forest, Gran Paradisio Island and The Old Mine),
• SSAA (render resolution above 100%) and Percentage-Closer Soft Shadows for users with powerful GPUs,
• Spotlight support and significant updates to the Vulkan renderer, bringing it closer to feature parity, although OpenGL remains the default renderer.

Please report any issue you encounter (and that has not already been reported!) on our bug tracker.