Necronomi-Jam winners: Meet the VIVERSE track champions
Cosmic horror came to the browser this summer, and today we’re announcing the Necronomi-Jam winners of the VIVERSE track. Ritual Disorder took first place and the Innovation Award, followed by The Phare in second and HONEY, I FORGOT THE KEY in third. Each team built its game in a single weekend, and all three are live on VIVERSE right now — playable from a single link.
Watch the winners announcement below, then read on to meet each game.
What was Necronomi-Jam?
Necronomi-Jam was a game jam built around H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror: ancient gods, forbidden knowledge, and sanity that slowly slips away. It ran from July 24 to 26, 2026.
A game jam with a secret genre
Most jams reveal their theme at kickoff, but Necronomi-Jam flipped that idea. Teams knew the Lovecraftian theme ahead of time, while the genre stayed a secret.
At the opening ceremony, judges drew five genres live from a pool of 21. Each team picked one and blended it with the cosmic horror theme. It worked like a card draw that shaped the whole weekend: teams could plan their stories, but the draw decided how they’d tell them.
Who could join
The jam welcomed game makers across Thailand and beyond. On-site venues ran in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen, and Phuket, plus Jakarta, Indonesia. One Bangkok venue at CMKL University was just for high school students, and everyone else could join online through Discord.
Hosted by Game Dev Hub
Game Dev Hub, a game development company in Bangkok, organized and hosted Necronomi-Jam. Each venue had its own panel of judges from professional game studios, plus a 17,500 THB (about $530 USD) prize pool for its top three teams. From there, the top 10 games from each venue advanced to a Global Final.
How VIVERSE supported Necronomi-Jam
VIVERSE was a proud sponsor of Necronomi-Jam. We also ran the VIVERSE track to give jam games a life beyond judging day. Once a game is on VIVERSE, players can discover it, open it in a browser, and start playing.
What was the VIVERSE track?
The VIVERSE track rewarded teams that published their jam games on VIVERSE, separate from the venue prizes and the Global Final. We put up a prize pool of 80,000 THB (about $2,430 USD) across four awards:
- 1st place: 30,000 THB (about $910 USD)
- 2nd place: 20,000 THB (about $610 USD)
- 3rd place: 10,000 THB (about $300 USD)
- Innovation Award: 20,000 THB (about $610 USD)
USD amounts are approximate, based on exchange rates as of September 2026.
Meet the Necronomi-Jam winners
1st place and Innovation Award: Ritual Disorder
Ritual Disorder won two awards, first place and the Innovation Award, for a total of 50,000 THB (about $1,520 USD).
It’s a multiplayer social-deduction game for two to eight players. You and your fellow cultists must arrange a circle of relics before the candles burn out, but each player sees only part of the plan. You’ll have to talk it out.
One of you is secretly a traitor who sees the whole plan and can quietly steer everyone wrong. Fail a ritual, and the group votes to sacrifice a suspect. The game never tells you if you chose correctly.
Ritual Disorder runs entirely in the browser with no install, and it features real-time multiplayer and proximity voice chat. The closer your character stands to someone, the louder you sound, and players appear at the table under their VIVERSE names.
2nd place: The Phare
By benedictzir (Jakarta, Iterhaus)
The Phare is a fishing roguelike with a creeping sense of dread. Each day, you sail into a foggy sea to catch fish for a mysterious Light on your island. Your catch feeds the Light’s quota, and that quota rises every day.
You explore a grid of fog-covered water, and every move costs fuel. A sonar pulse reveals fish hiding nearby, and each catch starts a short skill minigame where rarer fish put up a bigger fight.
The best catches wait farther from home, but so does danger. Between trips, you can spend coins on fuel, repairs, a bigger hull, or a wider sonar. Every fish you land also joins a journal of strange creatures.
3rd place: HONEY, I FORGOT THE KEY
By nikitose (Bangkok, Game Dev Hub)
This bullet-hell roguelite has a personal twist. The creator turned a 360-degree panorama of their own apartment into the arena, complete with dynamic lighting. It’s mouse-only, which makes it quick to pick up.
It also uses VIVERSE sign-in to post completed runs to a global leaderboard, which adds a competitive edge to every run.
Build your next jam game for the web
Each winner took a different path. Ritual Disorder leans on real-time multiplayer and voice, The Phare builds tension with a quota that keeps climbing, and HONEY, I FORGOT THE KEY ties its global leaderboard to VIVERSE sign-in.
What they share is reach: every one of these games is playable from a link, with no download standing in the way. To learn why more developers are building for the browser, read our look at why web games are the ultimate opportunity.
Congratulations to every team that entered Necronomi-Jam. A big thank you to Game Dev Hub for hosting, and to the judges who made it happen.
Necronomi-Jam is a Lovecraftian cosmic horror game jam hosted by Game Dev Hub and sponsored by VIVERSE. It took place July 24 to 26, 2026, at venues in Thailand and Indonesia, plus online.
Ritual Disorder won first place and the Innovation Award. The Phare took second place, and HONEY, I FORGOT THE KEY took third.
The VIVERSE track rewarded teams that published their jam games on VIVERSE. It ran separately from the venue prizes and the Global Final.
The VIVERSE track prize pool was 80,000 THB, or about $2,430 USD. First place won 30,000 THB, second won 20,000 THB, third won 10,000 THB, and the Innovation Award was 20,000 THB.
All three winning games are live on VIVERSE, and you can play them right in your web browser.
Start with the VIVERSE documentation, which walks you through getting your game on the platform.
