The commercial version of "Tux Racer" attracted little attention. Andon Logvinov of "Igromania" described it as a "pure arcade game" featuring nothing but four selectable characters and a set of courses with fish scattered about. He described the gameplay as calm and addictive and the music as relaxing, and praised the character models and track layout, with his only criticism being the system requirements. Seiji Nakamura of the Japanese website Game Watch described it as cute and humorous and praised the game's graphics and shadow and reflection effects, but found the game to lack appeal for adults.