Recap to the Crazy Web Multiplayer Jam 2025
From April 25th to May 5th, 2025, Photon was part of the Crazy Web Multiplayer Jam, which offered 10 intense days of web game development. This online event, co-organized in partnership by CrazyGames and Indie Hero, brought together developers from around the world to push the boundaries of multiplayer web games. The jam aimed to fuel the growth of web games, offering a unique opportunity for creativity and business.
Overview of the Jam
The jam’s theme was Action, encouraging participants to create games with fast, dynamic gameplay, focusing on battles, chases, or quick reflex challenges to keep players engaged. The event was entirely online, open to participants worldwide, regardless of their location. It was completely free to join, welcoming both solo developers and teams of any size.
Participants had a strict 10-day development period to bring their multiplayer games to life. Key requirements for submissions included:
- Adhering to PEGI 12 rating criteria.
- Being developed entirely during the event period.
- Complying with all legal and ethical standards.
- An initial game size under 50 MB and a final size not exceeding 250 MB. Games were submitted first to the CrazyGames developer portal, followed by submission to the Indie Hero form.
Photon’s Role: Educating, Building, and Leading Multiplayer Development
A core objective of the Crazy Web Multiplayer Jam 2025 was to help developers achieve something new and build multiplayer games efficiently, showcasing Photon’s leading technologies. Many participants were exploring multiplayer development for the first time.
During the jam, our team gave real-time guidance, allowing developers to “level up their multiplayer skills” and felt “guided, empowered, and excited to keep building”.
For ease of use and rapid prototyping, Photon Fusion in Shared Mode is highly recommended for jams. This choice is emphasized for several reasons:
- It is fully compatible with WebGL.
- It features low CPU usage and low latency.
- It supports seamless drop-in/drop-out player handling.
- It eliminates the need for complex dedicated servers or player hosting, as it utilizes cloud-based state synchronization. This approach allows developers to focus on gameplay rather than infrastructure, making multiplayer development more accessible.
For developers seeking more control and performance, Photon Quantum was highlighted as an advanced, deterministic engine built for serious multiplayer games, especially suitable for competitive and latency-sensitive genres. Quantum offers features like predict/rollback netcode, inputs-only synchronization, making it a powerful choice for those confident in game development and aiming for WebGL. Its ability to handle dynamic physics in web environments is beneficial for many projects.
Why the Web Is the Ultimate Platform for Multiplayer Games
The jam underscored the significant advantages of building multiplayer games for the web:
- Massive Audience Reach: WebGL support is cross-platform and across devices, enabling developers to reach a broad global audience with low friction and user acquisition costs.
- Higher Retention & Engagement: Multiplayer games demonstrate double the long-term player retention compared to single-player titles, creating longer session times and boosting discoverability.
- Social Connectivity: Features like CrazyGames’ Friends system allow players to invite friends with one click and play together instantly, fostering social interaction.
- Monetization Potential: Multiplayer titles are inherently suited for live-service updates, cosmetics, and battle passes, aligning with ongoing engagement and monetization strategies. Rafael Morgan, VP of Marketing and Partnerships at CrazyGames, stated that “there is no better place for for multiplayer games than the web. You share a link your friend click on the link and boom you’re playing together in a second”.
Photon also provided numerous ready-to-use multiplayer WebGL samples like “Flagrant Disregard WebGL Edition” (built with Fusion Shared Authority) and “Quantum Crazy Starter WebGL” (pre-integrated with CrazySDK) to help jammers kick-start their projects.
Celebrating the Winners
The Crazy Web Multiplayer Jam 2025 offered substantial rewards, with a total prize pool of EUR 10,000. Cash prizes were awarded to the top 5 games, and the top 3 teams also received premium Photon licenses (valued up to $7.5k for the top winner) to continue building multiplayer games. Winners also had the option to secure an additional amount through a revenue share agreement for publishing their games on CrazyGames, ensuring both immediate rewards and long-term financial support.
Here are some of the winning projects that brilliantly leveraged Photon’s technology:
A fast-paced, one-finger multiplayer racing platformer blending the competitive energy of SpeedRunners with the simplicity of King of Thieves.
“I built this using Photon Quantum 3. As a solo developer, testing multiplayer can be a nightmare — juggling multiple devices or waiting for friends to help test isn’t always practical. With Quantum, it felt more like building a local game. Once I set up basic bots, I could test real gameplay scenarios on my own — even with 32 or 64 simulated players — which helped a lot with balancing and figuring out how the game handles larger matches without needing to beg my friends to join a test session at 2 a.m.”
This highlights Quantum’s power for solo developers and its robust testing capabilities.
Stickmans and Guns by Rike Games
A fast-paced online stickman shooter where players jump, blast, and outgun each other in dynamic environments.
“We used Quantum 3, and while getting started with it was a bit of a challenge at first, this was actually our second game using it, so everything went a lot smoother this time. We really enjoy working with Quantum, and the best part is that once you understand the core concepts, you can just focus on building your game while the multiplayer side “just works.””
This demonstrates the learnability of Quantum and its “just works” reliability once core concepts are understood. Roxy and Mike, even created a short little video and documented their developing process. You should not miss this:
Punks In Tanks by Code Destroyers
Fast-paced multiplayer mayhem with destructible environments and tanks that pick up turrets scattered across the battlefield.
“It was built in Quantum, because I needed dynamic physics in web, learned it during the jam and the Photon team helped a lot with many questions. It was challenging but great learning experience, integration with Unity felt natural (being able to setup entities directly in the scene, using regular game-objects as views), having no netcode felt like magic and allowed to iterate on features quickly without worries, although determinism comes at a cost – the feature set is quite limited compared to standard Unity, and performance budget is a lot tighter when it comes to physics (especially in web!), but the game won’t be possible on that platform without it. I highly recommend trying it out, their documentation is great!”
This showcases Quantum’s capability for complex physics in web environments and the invaluable support from the Photon team.
Other notable winners included Turbo Tag by Manabreak and Football but with a weapon by Echobay.
A Bright Future for Multiplayer Web Games
The overall feedback from the jam was overwhelmingly positive. Rafael Morgan of CrazyGames was “really impressed by the creativity and quality of submissions” and noted that “the innovation we saw shows a lot of promise for multiplayer web games”. The Indie Hero team praised the jam as a “turning point” for many developers venturing into multiplayer for the first time, acknowledging that “the support from the Photon team made a huge difference”.
The Crazy Web Multiplayer Jam 2025 truly highlighted what’s possible when talent meets the right tools. It served as a testament to Photon’s commitment to educate developers, empower them to build innovative multiplayer experiences, and ultimately lead the charge in the rapidly evolving landscape of web-based gaming.
