Tux Racer was originally developed by Jasmin Patry, a student attending the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, where he aimed to begin a career in the video game industry by pursuing a computer graphics degree.[6] Development of the game began in August 1999 as a final computer graphics project in Computer Graphics Lab, and was completed in three days to positive class reception.[6][7] A webpage for the game was then started, and someone suggested he release the game's source code.[6] Patry felt that made sense due to Tux being the mascot for the open-source Linux, and continued to work on the game before publicly uploading it to SourceForge for Linux under the free GNU General Public License on February 28, 2000, hoping others would join in on developing it.[3][6][8] This early version featured a very basic gameplay that consisted of Tux sliding down a hill of snow, ice, rock, and trees for Tux to avoid along the way.