Seongnam City, the Seongnam Industry Promotion Agency, and the Korea Mobile Game Association held the 2026 INDIECRAFT Awards Ceremony, presenting awards to six outstanding developers. The Grand Prize in the Domestic/Community category went to 1HP STUDIO, developer of INARI, along with a prize of 40 million won.
The awards ceremony took place on the 15th at Hyatt Place Seoul Pangyo. A total of 72 developers were selected for this year's program, including 52 in the Domestic division and 20 in the Challenger division. Among them, award results were announced for six developers that placed in the Top 3 for each division.
Grand Prize winner INARI is a high-speed kunai action platformer played with a single life. Set in an Eastern fantasy world where mythology and steel collide, organizers explained that the game received high praise for its level of polish.
In the Domestic division, Wayway's Aksun received the Excellence Award and 10 million won in prize money, while Circle From Dot's Kusan: City of Wolves took the Merit Award and 5 million won. Aksun is a hack-and-slash action roguelike based on Korean shamanism, while Kusan: City of Wolves is a hardcore top-down shooter.
The rankings for the Domestic division reflected 1st-round document evaluation results at 30% and 2nd-round Focus Group Test (FGT) evaluation results involving general users at 70%. The final award standings were unveiled for the first time at the venue.
The top prize in the Challenger division, which focuses on university student development teams, went to Plutarchos for presenting Theseus, along with a 2 million won scholarship. Theseus is a tactical FPS that combines a commander's operational decision-making with a mercenary's bodycam perspective.
Sprout Studio's War in the Dark, which earned the Merit Award in the Challenger division, is a turn-based strategy game depicting 1950s battlefield Morse code intelligence warfare in 1-bit pixel art. Sprout Studio was awarded a 1 million won scholarship. The Indie Level-Up Award and a 500,000 won scholarship went to TRINUT STUDIO. Their award-winning title, Pass the Bomb: Runner, is a balance action game where players run while controlling a bomb's center of gravity.
Jae-eun Yun, co-CEO of ONE N ONE—last year's top developer in the Domestic division—participated in this year's presentation. Yun handed out awards to the winning teams, sharing experiences from the past year since winning and offering words of encouragement to fellow indie developers. The steering committee plans to continue the practice of having the previous year's 1st-place developer present awards to the following year's winners.
Hosted by Seongnam City and co-organized by the Seongnam Industry Promotion Agency and the Korea Mobile Game Association, 2026 INDIECRAFT ran for about seven months starting in March. Following the announcement of selected titles, the initiative operated a promotional booth at Gamescom in Germany, an offline exhibition connected with GXG 2026, and export consultation sessions at Connect Fair, wrapping up this year's schedule with the awards ceremony.
Delivering the welcome address at the ceremony, Joint Organizing Committee Chair Ju-yeon Lee, Director of the Seongnam Industry Promotion Agency, said, "Indie games are made not through large capital, but through passion and fresh imagination," adding, "I hope today's awards serve as a small reward for the time and effort poured into these projects." Lee continued, "Pangyo is the heart of Korea's gaming industry," promising, "Together with the Korea Mobile Game Association, we will stand by developers to help them continue making games and reach a broader global stage."
Joint Organizing Committee Chair Sung-ik Hwang, Chairman of the Korea Mobile Game Association, congratulated the winning developers and stated, "To ensure these awards are more than just a one-time honor, we will spare no support to drive meaningful growth, including securing investment, publishing, and overseas expansion."
