Jono is the free Steam game where one player takes a turn at a time
The free platformer Jono lets one player take control for a minute while everyone else watches, chats and waits their turn.
Jono is turning a familiar platform-game idea into a genuinely shared event: only one player can control its tiny hero at a time, while everyone else waits, watches and chats. The free-to-play game has attracted queues lasting more than an hour, according to Polygon, despite launching only earlier this month.1
The premise is deliberately simple. Each player gets roughly one minute of control, and the next person takes over from the exact point where the previous player stopped. A mistake does not erase the community's progress: cleared rooms remain cleared for everybody, while a death resets only the current room. Steam describes the journey as a million unique levels, with a global chat and a spectator view built into the experience.2
That makes Jono less like a conventional multiplayer game and more like a public relay. People waiting in the queue can watch the current attempt, offer advice or complain in chat, then inherit the same run when their turn arrives. Players can also create levels for the shared journey, giving the community a way to make the challenge harder for whoever comes next.2
Polygon reports that one player spent more than five hours attempting a single fan-created level, while developer Part Time Monkey has said more than 100 players have left the game open for at least 10 hours. At a reported pace of about 5,000 cleared levels per day, the developer estimates that reaching the millionth level could take until the middle of 2027.1
The unusual format has already translated into strong player interest. Jono holds a Very Positive rating on Steam, and the developer says it will remain free rather than adding monetisation to capitalise on the attention.12
Our opinion
The clever part of Jono is not the million-level headline; it is the social contract underneath it. A normal platformer asks whether one person can finish a course. Jono asks whether thousands of strangers can resist making the next person's minute impossible. That shared sense of responsibility gives every jump a little more tension, and turns waiting into part of the game rather than dead time.