Open source since 2026
Minkowski Kart is an open-source relativistic kart-racing game created by Robson Christie. It reworks a mature kart-racing foundation around special-relativistic optics, time effects, and physics-themed arcade mechanics.
History
The public repository history begins in April 2026. Development started from the SuperTuxKart codebase and introduced a dedicated relativity module, renderer changes, new telemetry, physics-themed power-ups, tracks, platform packages, and supporting technical documentation.
The current public release is version_1.92, published on 21 August 2026. Working packages are available for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android, with new experiments and racing ideas still in active development.
Foundations
SuperTuxKart provides the core racing engine, game modes, input systems, networking foundations, and a large body of code and assets. Inherited copyright and attribution records remain part of Minkowski Kart.
The code and documentation identify SuperTuxKart as Minkowski Kart's upstream foundation, with its copyright and attribution records preserved throughout the project.
The MIT Game Lab's OpenRelativity project pioneered approachable real-time relativistic visualisation. Minkowski Kart adapts physical-model ideas and colour-shift code under the MIT License, with attribution in the source and technical manuscript.
Minkowski Kart extends that inspiration through a per-object apparent-position pipeline, a dynamic racing scene, and project-specific arcade mechanics.
Licence
The program is distributed under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later. You may inspect, modify, and redistribute it under those terms.
Artwork, audio, tracks, models, fonts, and other assets use a range of compatible licences. Their local License.txt, licenses.txt, CREDITS, and similar records under data/ and stk-assets/ must stay with the material they describe.
Participate
The code, shaders, workflows, physics manuscript, and issue tracker are public. Useful contributions include clean-machine platform tests, accessibility findings, reproducible build improvements, physics corrections, translations, and genuinely captured media.