Jono, a free PC platformer available on Steam, allows only one person worldwide to control its playable character at any given moment. Each player receives a 60-second turn before control passes to the next person in a global queue, creating an unusual multiplayer experience built around a single shared character.
Developed by Finnish indie developer Tuomas Erikoinen under his Part Time Monkey studio, Jono launched on Steam on October 4, 2026. The game has recently attracted thousands of new players, with its growing audience pushing waiting times beyond an hour.
In an October 24 Reddit post, Erikoinen revealed that more than 2,500 new players had joined over approximately two and a half days. During that period, participants accumulated over 3,300 hours of spectator activity, compared with just 62 hours of actual gameplay.
The increase in interest has significantly affected the game’s global queue. According to Erikoinen, the waiting line previously contained around five to ten people but now rarely falls below 60. At its busiest, the queue reached 99 players, meaning participants could wait more than an hour for their one-minute opportunity to play.
Unlike conventional multiplayer platformers, Jono features a single character whose progress belongs to the entire community. Players take turns navigating increasingly challenging rooms containing spikes, crushers, ice, portals and other obstacles.
When a player’s 60-second turn expires, the next participant takes over from the same point. Dying only resets the current room, while previously completed levels remain permanently cleared for everyone.
Players waiting in line can watch the active participant in real time, communicate through a shared chat, send emotes and participate in smaller activities. The game also includes cosmetic rewards, character customization and leaderboards.
Jono uses the Godot game engine, but its spectator system does not rely on conventional video streaming. According to the developer, the game transmits the active player’s inputs, allowing each spectator’s computer to reproduce the gameplay locally. This approach enables everyone to follow the same character without continuously transmitting rendered video frames.
The community’s ultimate objective is to complete one million unique rooms together. Most levels are procedurally generated, although players can create additional challenges using an integrated level editor.
Player-created stages must be completed by their creators before entering the shared journey. Particularly difficult challenges can also appear in an optional mode called Meat Grinder.
One such level reportedly required 2,627 attempts and nearly five hours before the community successfully completed it.
Erikoinen said that players were approximately 5,000 rooms away from completing their first 100,000 levels as of October 24. He also indicated that a surprise was planned for reaching that milestone, although its details remain undisclosed.
The sudden influx of players has created additional challenges for the developer. Erikoinen acknowledged that chat moderation briefly struggled to handle the increased activity, while numerous player-created levels required review before being added to the game.
Despite the growing audience, Erikoinen confirmed that Jono will remain free. He also said he has no plans to introduce donations or additional monetization mechanisms.
Jono is available for Windows PCs through Steam. Players can download the game, join the global queue and participate in its shared progression system without purchasing the game.
While other Steam titles such as Deadlock have attracted hundreds of thousands of concurrent players, Jono takes a fundamentally different approach to multiplayer participation by limiting active control to one person while allowing everyone else to watch and contribute to the same journey.
