Uploaded January 2021 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
Well, here it is. After over 3 years of work and 200+ hours invested in the project, AroundTheLighthouse is finally complete. Like the video describes, this level is a reimagination of the SuperTuxKart track, but taken in my own creative way and expanded with my own lore. Never have I ever taken on a project that was more ambitious than this one, having to do a complete level/lore redesign, reaching the 80k object limit over 5 times, having to deal with lag on mobile, and dealing with school. But it’s finally finished. Thank you everyone who supported me!
Lore of the Level:
The setting is a small fishing island off of the coast of Scotland. The key attraction is its lighthouse, which has stood on the island for generations. It had guided many boats back to its harbor, as well as helping planes safely land. In turn, everyone relied on it, perhaps a bit too much.
One fateful night, a tropical storm hit the coast. Everyone was radioed to get off the island as fast as possible. They left the lighthouse on, just in case.
It turned out that a plane coming in from Grand Paradiso was scheduled to land during the storm. It flew into the storm, relying on the beam from the lighthouse as its only guide. It was at this moment that the light went out.
Nobody knows why this accident occured. Whatever the case may be, the plane lost sense of direction. Desperately trying to get radio contact, it circled Around The Lighthouse, as it was the only thing visible in the clouds. The plane was never seen again.
Weeks later, a SAR team came across the wreckage near the island. Further investigation recognized it as the missing airliner, which had failed to make port. 42 passengers had died in the wreckage. 3 years later, a monument was placed on the highest hill, looking out to the sea that claimed the victims lives. It will stand there for generations, just as the lighthouse has. Lest We Forget~
About the level:
It all started in September of 2017, during the Doom Gauntlet Contest. Wanting to enter but concerned about gameplay, I held a layout contest. 3 people entered, in which one of the participants (SnowmanMcGee) entered the original layout of ATL. I declared him the winner, and gave a vow to use the layout in a level, no matter what happened.
Running out of time, I worked tirelessly building up the level, which I called “Horrible Black Void”. The idea was to create a feeling of doom by having a black hole suck up everything in its path. Alas, the concepts were too much of an executional nightmare, so I let the project go.
For the next year, I fiddled with the layout for ~2 hours a week, adding designs and small tweaks. It is here where I designed most of the castle section, as well as the blocks at the beginning and the first drop. But the idea of HBV was gone at this point. I didn’t have the passion to get it done.
And then SuperTuxKart released version 0.9
SuperTuxKart (STK) has been the game I grew up with. I started playing when I was 6 and I am still playing 12 years later. Throughout its history, few tracks have stayed through every version. Around The Lighthouse, however, was one that stayed.
Around The Lighthouse wasn’t always about a violent storm. Around update 0.5, it was a calm and cloudy track, using a calm piano song named “On the River”. Update 0.9, however, completely changed its theme. Now, rolling storms and lightning strikes fill the sky in torrents of rain. The song switched to the energetic “Klabauter Dance” by Krobonil and portrays the feeling that the lighthouse is a beacon of hope. There was also an out-of-bounds secret added, which was a tombstone about the fall of Oceanic Airlines Flight 404. This was the inspiration I needed.
With the level’s new title, I returned to the layout and began to construct it to represent an abandoned fishing town. The level then contained a tavern, a place to go undersea, and finally at the end a chance for the player to go around the lighthouse with Airline before it crashed. I tried my hardest to recreate what the storm would have looked like, and did my best to make it look destructive without obscuring gameplay. 2 years later, it was finished.
Songs Used:
(0:00) Lull Men To Their Doom (Song of the Sirens) by SkullyHopGD (me)
(1:11) Klabauter Dance by Krobonil
MP3 download here: downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/supertuxkart
(1:36) -Storm- by Waterflame
Listen to it on Youtube: youtube.com/watch?v=jvoT4XnbgNs&t=1s
Listen/Download it on Newgrounds: newgrounds.com/audio/listen/87983
Check him out here: waterflame.com
youtube.com/channel/UCVuv5iaVR55QXIc_BHQLakA
(2:53) Parallel (Piano Version) by SkullyHopGD (me)
I DO NOT OWN THE SONGS Klabauter Dance OR -Storm- IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM. PLEASE GO SUPPORT THE ARTISTS ON THEIR RESPECTED PLATFORMS.
Footage from the game SuperTuxKart version 1.2.
Get the game here: supertuxkart.net/Download
Well, here it is. After over 3 years of work and 200+ hours invested in the project, AroundTheLighthouse is finally complete. Like the video describes, this level is a reimagination of the SuperTuxKart track, but taken in my own creative way and expanded with my own lore. Never have I ever taken on a project that was more ambitious than this one, having to do a complete level/lore redesign, reaching the 80k object limit over 5 times, having to deal with lag on mobile, and dealing with school. But it’s finally finished. Thank you everyone who supported me!
Lore of the Level:
The setting is a small fishing island off of the coast of Scotland. The key attraction is its lighthouse, which has stood on the island for generations. It had guided many boats back to its harbor, as well as helping planes safely land. In turn, everyone relied on it, perhaps a bit too much.
One fateful night, a tropical storm hit the coast. Everyone was radioed to get off the island as fast as possible. They left the lighthouse on, just in case.
It turned out that a plane coming in from Grand Paradiso was scheduled to land during the storm. It flew into the storm, relying on the beam from the lighthouse as its only guide. It was at this moment that the light went out.
Nobody knows why this accident occured. Whatever the case may be, the plane lost sense of direction. Desperately trying to get radio contact, it circled Around The Lighthouse, as it was the only thing visible in the clouds. The plane was never seen again.
Weeks later, a SAR team came across the wreckage near the island. Further investigation recognized it as the missing airliner, which had failed to make port. 42 passengers had died in the wreckage. 3 years later, a monument was placed on the highest hill, looking out to the sea that claimed the victims lives. It will stand there for generations, just as the lighthouse has. Lest We Forget~
About the level:
It all started in September of 2017, during the Doom Gauntlet Contest. Wanting to enter but concerned about gameplay, I held a layout contest. 3 people entered, in which one of the participants (SnowmanMcGee) entered the original layout of ATL. I declared him the winner, and gave a vow to use the layout in a level, no matter what happened.
Running out of time, I worked tirelessly building up the level, which I called “Horrible Black Void”. The idea was to create a feeling of doom by having a black hole suck up everything in its path. Alas, the concepts were too much of an executional nightmare, so I let the project go.
For the next year, I fiddled with the layout for ~2 hours a week, adding designs and small tweaks. It is here where I designed most of the castle section, as well as the blocks at the beginning and the first drop. But the idea of HBV was gone at this point. I didn’t have the passion to get it done.
And then SuperTuxKart released version 0.9
SuperTuxKart (STK) has been the game I grew up with. I started playing when I was 6 and I am still playing 12 years later. Throughout its history, few tracks have stayed through every version. Around The Lighthouse, however, was one that stayed.
Around The Lighthouse wasn’t always about a violent storm. Around update 0.5, it was a calm and cloudy track, using a calm piano song named “On the River”. Update 0.9, however, completely changed its theme. Now, rolling storms and lightning strikes fill the sky in torrents of rain. The song switched to the energetic “Klabauter Dance” by Krobonil and portrays the feeling that the lighthouse is a beacon of hope. There was also an out-of-bounds secret added, which was a tombstone about the fall of Oceanic Airlines Flight 404. This was the inspiration I needed.
With the level’s new title, I returned to the layout and began to construct it to represent an abandoned fishing town. The level then contained a tavern, a place to go undersea, and finally at the end a chance for the player to go around the lighthouse with Airline before it crashed. I tried my hardest to recreate what the storm would have looked like, and did my best to make it look destructive without obscuring gameplay. 2 years later, it was finished.
Songs Used:
(0:00) Lull Men To Their Doom (Song of the Sirens) by SkullyHopGD (me)
(1:11) Klabauter Dance by Krobonil
MP3 download here: downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/supertuxkart
(1:36) -Storm- by Waterflame
Listen to it on Youtube: youtube.com/watch?v=jvoT4XnbgNs&t=1s
Listen/Download it on Newgrounds: newgrounds.com/audio/listen/87983
Check him out here: waterflame.com
youtube.com/channel/UCVuv5iaVR55QXIc_BHQLakA
(2:53) Parallel (Piano Version) by SkullyHopGD (me)
I DO NOT OWN THE SONGS Klabauter Dance OR -Storm- IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM. PLEASE GO SUPPORT THE ARTISTS ON THEIR RESPECTED PLATFORMS.
Footage from the game SuperTuxKart version 1.2.
Get the game here: supertuxkart.net/Download
