ROG Challenge 2026 Winners Announced: Vote Now to Win an ASUS TUF Gaming Laptop
ASUS Romania has concluded the primary phase of the ROG 20-Year Coding Challenge 2026, culminating in an awards gala held on March 31. The competition, organized in partnership with the Inspectoratul Școlar al Municipiului București, was designed as a practical game development exercise for high school students across Romania.
The initiative attracted participants from 42 different high schools, with 41 game projects successfully passing the validation stage. Eligible students from grades IX through XII were required to be registered by a coordinating teacher and utilize the itch.io platform for project submission.
Competition Structure and Educational Framework
The challenge centered on the theme “Republic of Gamers – 20 Years of Innovation,” requiring students to create a game that reflected the spirit of performance and technology. Participants were given freedom in how they interpreted the theme, whether through gameplay mechanics, narrative, visual style, or technical execution.
The competition included a structured educational component to prepare students for the development phase. Between February 15 and March 22, 2026, ASUS provided weekly programming seminars streamed live on YouTube. These sessions covered fundamental and advanced programming concepts, game development workflows, and best practices specifically tailored for the Game Jam.
The development period lasted one month, during which students applied the knowledge from the seminars to build their projects. The evaluation was conducted by a professional jury consisting of two ASUS representatives, two university programming professors, and three gaming content creators and key opinion leaders. The panel included specialists from Gameloft and ECHO School.
Awards and Scholarship Distribution
The top five finalists were awarded ASUS TUF Gaming F16 (FX607VJ) laptops. An additional ten participants received vouchers valued at 1,500 lei for the ASUS eShop.
Beyond hardware and vouchers, the competition established a scholarship fund totaling 36,000 euros (approximately 178,920 lei). These funds were distributed based on final rankings: students placing first through third received 5,000 euros per year, those in fourth through sixth place received 4,000 euros per year, and those in seventh through ninth place were awarded 3,000 euros per year.
Public Participation and Popularity Prize
Even as the professional jury has determined the primary winners, a separate popularity prize is currently being decided by the general public. All validated projects are hosted on itch.io, where users can vote for their preferred game.
As part of this engagement phase, every individual who casts a vote is automatically entered into a lottery to win an ASUS TUF Gaming laptop.
Public voting for the popularity prize remains open until April 15, 2026.