The fifteenth annual online js13kGames competition starts… NOW! Build a web game following the given theme within the next month and fit it into a 13KB zip package to win lots of cool prizes and respect from fellow developers!
This year’s theme is apocaly... nope, not this time. This time the theme is Unicorns and Rainbows!
Not the usual death, destruction, bad luck , doom and gloom, right? I mean, you can still shape this into anything you want, but the starting point is a little bit different this time.
It all started last year when Xem mentioned fun as a factor when judging entries.
I immediately knew it’s going to be a theme for 2026. Of course, you can interpret this however you like, have unicorns as main characters, rainbows in the background, make the game kid friendly, or create the evil unicorns wreaking havoc and bringing the apocalypse to the world. All up to you - as usual, unleash your creativity!
The Submit form will open in a few days, so for now focus on brainstorming the ideas and the first working prototype. After all, you have a whole month to build the game.
Categories
Beside the standard Desktop and Mobile , we have a cool hardware prize in the WebXR category yet again, the Online category is officially here, and we have a brand new Wavedash category offering benefits for publishing your entries on their platform. All are entirely optional, but bringing extra prizes if you’re able to participate.
Also, don’t forget we still have Unfinished category if you end up with incomplete entry (for any reason) you’d still like to show on the competition website.
Partners
The support from the companies listed below is key to being able to run this compo.
Those are:
- Platinum: Wavedash
- Gold: GitHub, Poki
- Silver: OP Guild, Berrry
- Bronze: Enclave Games, Gamedev.js
Prizes
We have more than 20 different types of prizes in 2026 - plenty of cool things to win.
The exact design of our traditional t-shirt for top 100 participants and this year’s gadget will be revealed in the next few days, so stay tuned.
Experts
Our awesome experts will be providing valuable feedback to your entries. They will carefully play through the games assigned to them and write their advice.
We try to have at least one expert feedback per entry, given how many entries we receive each year and how limited the time of our experts is. That said, you do get dozens of comments from fellow devs, who know how difficult it might be to create a good game within the size limitation, so we hope that will be more than enough.
Support
Collaborate, document, share, promote. We’re all in this together and other participants can help you if you help them as well. Collaborate with fellow developers, suggest theme ideas, help fix bugs, or playtest their entries and you will get the same in return. Join our Slack or Gamedev.js’ Discord server with the #js13kGames channel where you can find other participants.
Document as you go, share your progress using #js13k hashtag on X (Twitter), Mastodon, or Bluesky, so it will be easier for you to recap what you did and write the Post Mortem of what went good and what could’ve been done better.
And most importantly: help promote the competition , share the info with your local communities, friends from work, and invite them all to participate! The bigger we are the better for everyone, thank you so much for all your efforts!
That’s it - good luck and have fun!
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