Free Steam game Jono lets one player take a turn worldwide
Free Steam platformer Jono lets one player at a time control a shared hero while everyone else watches, chats and waits their turn.
Jono is a free Steam platformer with an unusually communal twist: only one person in the world can control its shared hero at any one time. Each turn lasts for one minute or five failed attempts, then the next player takes over from the same point. Everyone else can watch, chat, send reactions and leave advice while they wait. 1
One world, one queue
The game’s shared journey contains one million stages. Progress is permanent for everyone, and a gravestone remains where a player fails, giving the next person a warning about the danger ahead. The queue turns a tiny platformer into something closer to a live public challenge than a conventional single-player campaign. 1
Developer Part Time Monkey said more than 100 players have already spent at least 10 hours with the game, while six have passed 100 hours. One player has cleared more than 7,500 stages. SteamDB’s figures show a small but persistent audience, with the wider community clearing roughly 5,000 stages per day at the time of the developer’s update. 2
The game also includes an editor. Creators must finish their own stages before submitting them, and the separate MEAT GRINDER mode lets players tackle community-made challenges that can take hours and thousands of attempts to complete. The main journey mixes hazards including spikes, darkness, ice, portals and rooms that can turn the world sideways. 1
A game about watching
The appeal is not limited to taking a turn. Players can sit in the queue and follow somebody else’s attempt, chat with strangers and celebrate a good run. That makes the waiting room part of the game rather than dead time, while the permanent shared progress means a failed attempt still moves the community’s story forward in small ways.
The developer’s Reddit update has pushed Jono back into the spotlight, even though its release came earlier in October. The community is now approaching 100,000 cleared stages, and the developer has teased that something may happen when the milestone is reached. 2
Our opinion
Jono is a clever answer to the question of what a platformer looks like when nobody owns the next attempt. Its one-minute turns keep the queue moving, while the chat and spectator systems give waiting players a reason to stay. The unusual structure will not suit anyone looking for uninterrupted control, but as a shared arcade cabinet for the whole internet, it has a much stronger idea than its deliberately simple presentation suggests.