The IGF Grand Prize Winner Just Launched. It Might Be the Best Game of 2026.

The Seumas McNally Grand Prize is the most prestigious award in indie games. Past winners include Outer Wilds, Return of the Obra Dinn, and A Short Hike. This year it went to Titanium Court, a surreal strategy game that nobody can quite pin down. It launched on Steam today.

Its creator, AP Thomson, is the first developer to win the award in back-to-back years. He co-developed last year’s winner, Consume Me, with Jenny Jiao Hsia. Now he has done it again solo. That alone makes this game worth paying attention to.

What Even Is This Game?

Every review opens with the same problem: how do you describe Titanium Court? AV Club called it “a strategy game, a match-3 puzzler, and a tower defense game wrapped into a single package.” GamesRadar compared it to “Balatro meets Blue Prince.” The Steam page simply says “a surreal strategy game for clowns and criminals.”

Here is how it works. Each encounter has two phases. In the puzzle phase, you slide tiles on a grid to make matches. Matching tiles generates resources and reshapes the battlefield itself. In the battle phase, you deploy units and cast spells using those resources to defend your court against waves of enemies. Between encounters, you explore a map and talk to characters in visual novel-style conversations that are deliberately oblique and surprisingly funny.

The result is something that feels simple to play but deep to master. The match-3 layer alone would be a decent puzzle game. The tower defense layer alone would be a decent strategy game. Together, they create a feedback loop where every puzzle decision has tactical consequences and every tactical choice sends you back to rethinking the puzzle.

The Writing Is the Secret Weapon

What sets Titanium Court apart from other genre mashups is the tone. The conversations between encounters land somewhere between Alice in Wonderland and David Lynch. Characters speak in riddles that somehow make sense. The humor is breezy and smart without ever relying on snark or internet references. It is one of the rare games that is genuinely, consistently funny.

That writing earned the game two of the biggest honors at this year’s IGF Awards: the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and Excellence in Design.

Who Made This?

AP Thomson is a New York-based developer who has quietly become one of the most decorated indie creators working today. He is only the second developer in IGF history to win the Grand Prize more than once. Published by Fellow Traveller, who also put out Citizen Sleeper, Paradise Killer, and In Other Waters.

Titanium Court is available now on Steam for PC and Mac. If you care about indie games at all, this is the one to play this week.

For the full breakdown of this year’s IGF ceremony, read our coverage of every 2026 IGF Award winner.