On August 13th, the Mythos Youth Council celebrated entrants of the 2015 Mythos Challenge with awards for their creativity, perseverance, and voice. The event also launched our newest Pixel Arts initiative, the Youth Play Fund, to support Oregonian youth making games.
As the 1st recipient of our Youth Play Fund, we asked the youth council to award up to $5,000 to advance youth aspirations. They dedicated the awards to promoting a wide range of ages, experience, and youth voice. More than technical knowledge, they wanted to highlight the value of celebrating youth diversity and imagination for Oregon.
In addition to themed awards, the Epic Potential Awards provides a $1,000 budget and connects youth to professionals from Oregon’s game industries. Pixel Arts Game Education is proud to partner with the youth council and the Portland Indie Game Squad for the Youth Play Fund.
The next stage of the initiative is to create a state wide, open source platform for consumer choice funding of community based social good. The platform blends “kiva” with “patreon” and “humble bundle”– each month, we showcase a bundle of themed works; consumers choose how much to pay and select what percentages of the money go to youth developers, the non-profits, and the platform. Consumers also can choose to become sustainable funders by offering continuous sponsorships and no fault micro-loans.
As a member of Hive Cascadia, we look to make the Youth Play Fund serve local non-profits invested in positive youth development and committed to Youth-Adult Partnership. With this platform, youth can explore crowdfunding and community micro-economies before seeking larger platforms of entrepreneurship and equity investment.
How To Collaborate:
Join us for the 2016 Mythos Challenge. The Youth Council is enrolling partners now, and applications for the youth council open in September.
Become a partner of the Youth Play Fund. We are accepting applications for non-profit partners who wish fund youth aspirations to become makers, digital citizens, and community organizers.
Award Winners
Many of the winning games can be played online at Scratch.
Thematic Category $250
- Most interactive: Full Circle
- Most Immersive: Rythmia
- Best Story: Aegus and the Underworld
- Most Comedic: Cerberus Run
- Best Retelling: Gladiators
- Most Replayable: Pharoah
- Best Remix: Monster Hunter
People’s Choice Category $250
- Cerberus Run
Epic Potential Category $1000
- Heroicube
- Sun Knight
- Pixel Combat and Pixel Conquest
