Track Star news & patch notes

While I work on the college update, I still want to ensure I am making the existing game better. After a successful launch week (thank you!) I've seen more load on the game and how frequently people are able to hit high scores. Ultimately, I think normal was playing a little too much like easy, so I made a few balancing tweaks to improve the game experience and hopefully make victory a little more rewarding!

Balance Changes

• Throwing and Jumping have been reined in: Both builds were too easy. I changed the way stats effect throwing to make it slightly less strength-dominant which is why any build was OP. For jumping, I slightly nerfed training to make it a little more work to build the perfect jumper.

• Rebalanced stat weights across Sprints, Hurdles, and Distance events: This was some minor work around the edges, nothing has changed here that will likely be noticeable to the player.

• Removed the small starting-stat head start: Builds used to get a 5-point stat bump in their most important skill at the start of the game, effectively giving you 105 starting points vs. 100 for normal mode. That is no more!

• Elite performances are toned down: Previously, a fully maxed-out athlete could reliably hit the absolute best-case time or distance for their event. I've adjusted it so that is no longer how it works. An elite athlete can still hit the ceiling, but it requires near-perfect conditions and a little luck, the way breaking an incredible record should feel.

As players begin to experience these new changes, I'll gather more data and input and will likely balance again, but this feels like a step in the right direction based on what is being shared with me on the Discord.

Speaking of which - join the Discord: discord.gg/8BFuwmStGK

I am deep into the plans for the College update, which has been the top requested feature since I've launched the game. I've reshaped my plans slightly to try and bring that to life first given overwhelming demand.

But, that doesn't mean other features are going by the wayside. One of the systems I'm most proud of in this game is the rivalry system, and I've made some additions I want to share.

New: Rivals Screen + Challenge This Week

Rivalries now get their own home. There's a new Rivals tab in the sidebar (sitting between Rankings and the Record Book) where you can see your rival history at a glance.

From there, you can now issue a Challenge. Call out a rival and, if you run in an event that they normally compete in, you're guaranteed to face them in your next meet. Win or lose, a resolved challenge gives an extra swing to your Mentality, scaled by how fierce the rivalry has become. This can be a pretty big swing - a top-level rivalry is a +/- 9 skill points, putting a lot on the line.

Make sure not to miss the 'Challenge this Week' button at the bottom of the rivalry detail card. More to come with this feature, I want more direct interaction with rivals in the game.

Bug Fixes, Polish, Small Updates

Here's the rest of what got done in this update:

• Race animation was toned down a bit to prevent wild comebacks

• Race animation leaderboard ticker fixes so final results weren't shifting

• Identified and fixed a bug that was allowing HS freshman to post national-caliber times and distances.

• Fixed small bug in how stat gains were showing up in offseason

• Added specific flavor text for different builds in offseason menu

• I believe I addressed all remaining areas where text would inadvertently use the word "race" to describe field events

• Fixed Hall of Fame scroll behavior.

That's all for this now. If you're enjoying the game, please do me the kindness of leaving a review. They are appreciated!

See you on the track!

-- Goose

Made a ton of progress and I am really excited to share it. The initial race animation this game had was always a bit of a placeholder, I could not get the new animation done at launch but I wasn't too far behind. Very excited to share these updates.

New: Real Track Oval, Real Race Animation

The straight lines and predictable finishes are gone! They are replaced with a nice looking oval and some dynamic racing.

Every event now also has start and finish behavior that matches the real world.

• 200m / 400m / 400m hurdles — properly staggered starts on the curve, so outside lanes start further forward to make up for the longer bend

• 800m — staggered for the first turn, then a real break line where the field cuts in to lane 1

• 1600m / 3200m — a waterfall start line, no lanes

The pacing is the real fix here. Every runner used to move with the same generic speed curve. Now each athlete's own stats are read against the event's demands to give them a real pacing shape.

On top of that a live leaderboard overlay now tracks the field in real time as the race unfolds. You can watch the order shift and see the time gap as they go.

Reworked: The Offseason

The old offseason was just a draw of 3 training cards and one button click. I've replaced that with a multiple beat sequence that adds a little more color to the game.

First off, thank you to everyone who made launch day a success. This has already exceeded my expectations and we're on day 3. Second, shoutout to everyone in the Discord for their enthusiasm and suggestions, I'd encourage everyone who is playing to join: discord.gg/8BFuwmStGK

Now lets get down to business. This update includes a few fixes from the initial launch, and some brand new content. Here are the details:

New: Week 4 Meet Choice

Starting this update, Week 4 of every season is no longer just a League Meet, you get to make a choice:

• Frosh/Soph Invitational — As a freshman or sophomore, you can jump into this developmental meet against people your own age. The field might be easier than the league meet, but it's also a place where you will run into more rivals.

• Track Star Invitational — In junior and senior year, you can enter the Track Star Invitational, where you'll face an elite field. Higher pressure, tougher competition, and college scouts are watching. Performing well here gives your recruiting profile a real boost.

• Stick with League Meet — You can skip these options of course and stick with your league meet, which will give you a boost to mentality for supporting your teammates.

This is a feature that will grow with time as I weave it more into other game systems. For now, it provides a recruiting boost on the back end, but in the future it will tie into the team system, deeper into the rivalry system, and I will also likely add some Steam achievements around it.

New: Season Calendar

This was my most boneheaded mistake from launch! I never put a calendar or schedule into the game. Fortunately, it was also a very easy fix. In the sidebar menu, click calendar to see your upcoming races or look at your past results.

Fixed: Championship meet records

Fixed an error where you could be rewarded for setting a meet record in a championship meet even if you did not win the meet.

Fixed: Recruitment formula

Made changes to recruitment formula to more closely align it with endgame scoring formula. It will make recruitment more realistic in the first round as elite athlete won't be penalized for not having achieved certain goals they could not have achieved yet.

Track Star is officially live today! Want to take a minute to thank everyone who helped me on the way, the people who tested the game, and the people who have been enthusiastic since I rolled out the demo in April.

I have been a player of sports management games for probably 20+ years. Track and field is a little niche without much in the way of games. I hope Track Star scratches that itch for others the way it has for me.

If you buy the game, please join us on the Discord: https://discord.gg/8BFuwmStGK . I'd like to hear the good and bad, as well as share roadmap for the future of the game.

See you on the track!

- Goose

Getting everything ready for the big day on July 15. Running some more balancing tests and making some final tweaks to the game. Here's a quick recap:

Balance

• Overhauled the energy and fatigue system. Weekly energy regen is up, but racing on low fatigue is down. So it's easier to stay above water, but you're punished way more if you don't.

• Addressed training injury bug where it was not always wiping out all stat gains.

• Stat weights rebalanced across every build - throwing and distance running had drifted to be too dominant.

• National-level competition difficulty tuned down slightly - necessary after nerfing the over-aggressive training playstyle.

Content

• School names in D1/2/3 scholarship offers are now fictionalized to avoid licensing problems.

• Fixed an old Training Focus description that still mentioned a stat gain that had been removed.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a gender mismatch on two NPCs

• Fixed training card skill metadata.

Other than that we're locked and loaded for Wednesday, see you then!

Making a final push to get everything ready for the July 15 launch and am really happy with the progress, wanted to share an update.

New: Rankings and Revised NPC System

Rankings is the headline, but to get it done right I also had to revise the way NPCs were generated. Your athlete now exists in a much more "living" pool of competitors vs. the previous way I generated competition. You will now be able to see rankings for League, Class, State, Regional and National, it will inform championship meet selection, etc. This change also brought your class (Freshman, Sophomore, etc.) into the game, something long overdue.

Redesigned: Training Screen

The training screen got a full two-column redesign, with Rankings embedded directly in the sidebar so you can check your standing without leaving the screen.

Redesigned: Race Strategy Screen

Race strategy is now a two-column layout pairing your rival breakdown with the meet atmosphere, which has also been restyled to look more editorial.

Redesigned: Endgame

The endgame screen was a bit of a mess, too many different ideas, so I reworked it into a cleaner framework.

Fatigue Rework

The old fatigue penalty was based on hard cliffs with certain thresholds, reworked into more of a gradual slope once you're under a certain level. More natural.

Tutorial

This had gotten very stale, did a quick rewrite to make sure it was in-line with current game.

That's it for now, I am excited for July 15!

Have another new update here and, no surprises, it's oriented around improving the game design and making sure all the content is surfaced in a way that's easy for the player to find. Here's a quick rundown.

Throttle Lever Pacing

The race strategy card grid was dull, wanted to spice it up so I turned it into a throttle. Now you can literally go 'full throttle' in meets.

• Drag-to-set lever

• Info panel shows estimated times and marks for your setting

• See the energy cost and post-race effects of your pacing before you commit

Results Screen Overhaul

• PB and meet/school record banners sit at the top

• Narrative and stat breakdowns are merged into a single "Coach's Notes" card, with a deeper breakdown

• Fixed a width bug in the race animation view

Rival Card Redesign

• New head-to-head hero section, momentum strip, and side-by-side comparison

• Widened the box to fix a horizontal scrollbar issue

Training Screen Polish

• Removed redundant descriptions and added an energy bar for a cleaner look

New Content

• DNQ shadow field: if you miss a meet, you can now see the top 3 results from the field you would've faced

• Updated the tutorial, which was behind based on old versions of the game

• Added new content to various sections for variety

Bug Fixes

• Fixed milestone perk effects

• Fixed saves screen scroll

• Fixed DNQ weeks blocking the Next Week button

• Fixed a season-end reload issue if you saved and loaded in a bad spot

• Fixed a season goal bug for certain women's events

• Fixed a Hall of Fame category/PB display bug

Before I get started here, want to remind everyone to join the discord to see some of this dev work as it happens and to ask questions: https://discord.gg/8BFuwmStGK

This update is focused on surfacing new game content to make the experience more immersive and streamlining design. The headline item is the record book - at the start of every game, school and championship meet records are preseeded and evolve in the living game world.

The record book is accessed through a new button at the bottom of the left sidebar. The race preview screen, which was added in the last update, now flags when you're within striking distance of a record before a race. When you break the record, a teal card flags it on the race results screen.

Streamlined Design

Over the course of building the game, I've added a lot of small features along the way - achievements, milestones, perks, personal bests, records, etc. All of these elements were built and designed individually. Unfortunately, the design looked that way too.

The dashboard was a mess of pop-ups and colors, the information hierarchy was all off, etc. So I've done a design pass, taking the number of colors down a notch and standardizing on how certain information is presented. I've focused on using that amber color in more places because to me it screams track and field - I picked it because it evokes the medals, the sand, and the color of the track.

Rivalry Tweaks

Two key tweaks on rivals. The first is that in the endgame screen, it now surfaces your best rivalry and recaps your win/loss record. The second, and more important, is that your rivals get better! It had come to my attention that it was way too easy to stomp your rivals in your senior season, so I've increased their growth curve to hopefully mitigate that.

The Small Stuff

• Race log now records the actual times/distances, not just placements — rival screen shows "W 1st vs 2nd (10.92 vs 11.04)" instead of just the result

• Added rivalry deescalation: if you win enough races in a row, the rivalry can downgrade

• Early rivalries (fewer than 3 meetings) no longer show an empty writeup — added a small content pool just for emerging rivalries

• Rival cards on the race preview screen are now clickable, same as the spotlight cards

• Field on the preview screen sorts by projected time/distance instead of alphabetically

• Fixed a bug where small "pressure" events were getting cut to zero and doing nothing

Thanks for playing, more to come!

Pushed another update tonight focused on improving the game content and the immersion. This one focuses on a major expansion of the rivalry system and a new race preview screen for the big four meets (Class, State, Regional, National).

Rivalry upgrades

Rivals have been spotlighted with win/loss records tracked, but that's it. No further detail, no histories, and a flat status.

Now every rival has a full bio, head-to-head record, win/loss streak, a complete match history (every meet you two have ever shared, going back to freshman year), and commentary that actually reacts to your history vs. static text.

You can click into your rival to see this screen from both the rival spotlight section and in the new race preview section. There are roughly 80 new content lines for flavor to ensure no repeats and adequate depth for different situations.

Rivalries also level up and down now, with one-liners for both. Beat your rival enough times in a row and the game will actually tell you the tide turned, instead of just quietly updating a number.

Race preview screen

Before every championship meet — Class, State, Regional, Nationals — you'll get a scouting report on the field you're about to face. Rivals show up first, then the rest of the named competition, then everyone else, each with a projected mark so you know who's actually a threat.

Smaller bug fixes

• The rival spotlight cards had a transparency bug making them look washed out. Fixed.

• Added a proper "Did Not Qualify" screen for bye weeks at championship time, instead of leaving you staring at something that looked broken.

That's the update, more to come!

-- Goose

Sharing an update on the latest rev of Track Star which pushed today. The headline is I've changed offseason training to be decision-based vs. a flat boost.

In prior versions, every player got an overly generous stat bump in the offseason. This was a relic from when I was tuning the game and used offseason training as a way to balance the builds. But it was always placeholder and given my desire for the game to have tradeoffs and strategies, it needed an adjustment.

In the new update, players now can choose from a variety of offseason training methods that will boost different stats. Every offseason, you'll be offered a selection of training options depending on your build, from which you can choose one. Examples include:

• Core Stat Training — a +5 to one core stat (ex. Speed for a sprinter), at the cost of starting next season with less energy for training. This would represent the most "aggressive" strategy.

• Build-specific Training (ex. Hurdles Form Work) — Targeted gains in the skills that matter most for your build with no energy penalty.

• Generic options (Recovery Focus, Technique Camp, All-Around Development) — Balanced gains that ensure you start the following season with max energy.

That's the new strategic layer: go heavy on your specialty and pay for it in energy, or stay balanced and start the season fresh. My hope is that this now gives players different approaches not just in how they handle offseason, but in how they train.

This update also includes a few bug fixes, see below:

• Fixed the "Five PBs" career milestone — it was set up incorrectly so no one could achieve it, which made it a pretty lousy milestone!

• Your results in week 1 of freshman year should no longer immediately be a personal best, which was annoying!

• Fixed a training bonus bug that could grant too many stat points by applying per training instead of per week

• Several world events were not firing based on the formula, addressed that which should increase variety

Hope everyone had a chance to try the demo during Next Fest! Game is still on target to launch July 15.

The Track Star demo is now available on Steam.

The demo includes your full Freshman and Sophomore seasons — the builder, weekly training decisions, energy management, the regular season meet circuit, and the championship ladder through Nationals. Two full years of a four-year career.

You'll pick your build, allocate your stats, manage your energy week to week, and find out what kind of athlete you are by the end of Sophomore year.

The full game continues into Junior and Senior seasons, adds the college recruitment endgame, career epilogues, Hall of Fame tracking, and expanded rivalry arcs across all four years - with more content on the way.

If you play the demo and want more — wishlist the full game, which will arrive this summer.

🪿 Wishlist Track Star

Hey everyone — The big day is here! Track Star now has a Steam page and you can wishlist it today.

For anyone new here — Track Star is a text-based track and field career sim set in high school. You build an athlete, grind through four seasons of training and competition, chase down your rivals, and find out whether your senior year ends with a scholarship offer and a spot in the Hall of Fame.

I've been building this solo for a while now and it's come a long way. The game is already live on itch.io if you want to try it, and the Steam version is coming this summer with everything that's been added since - lots of polish, lots of content, and a few new features.

If it looks like something you'd enjoy, a wishlist goes a long way for a one-person shop.

Thanks for following along.

— Goose Hollow Games