Last year, industry veteran and Game Scout for 2Awesome Studio Liam Twose founded the #PitchYaGame initiative (with assistance from Indie Game Lover and That Thom Clancy), a way to educate developers both current and promising on the art of the game pitch while also helping to shine a light on some promising indie titles in the process. We've brought it up here before during previous editions of Screenshot Saturday, having noted someone else utilizing a notable Twitter hashtag as a way to discover amazing new games, but #PitchYaGame (or PYG, as it's nicknamed) has been using this method to much greater effect since then.

By the end of the year, the initiative was getting thousands of pitches during its regular rounds. So many, in fact, that going into 2021, it was announced that #PitchYaGame would evolve into a solely bi-annual event, but one that's much bigger. Not only that, but the success of PYG led to the creation of an Independent Games Guide to help even further when it comes to getting games discovered via a handy database, plus a partnership with Game Seer in order to help potential successes get the funding and financing that they need, and a sponsorship with Xsolla to help award the winners of the bi-annual competitions cash prizes. Needless to say, these are pretty impressive feats for what began as a hashtag and the thought of teaching folks more about the art of the pitch.

And so earlier this week, the first #PitchYaGame Awards of 2021 were held to honor the best pitches submitted during their event in June, with That Thom Clancy hosting. Who ended up being the big winners, and the recipients of the first cash prizes? Well, third place - $1,000 - went to developers Crispy Creative and A Long Journey to an Uncertain End, described as a narrative management space opera where you play as a sentient ship. Second place - $3,000 - was awarded to Pahris Entertainment and Space Wreck, a short, hardcore isometric RPG where you try to scavenge replacement parts in an old spaceship. And the first place gold trophy - $5,000 - was crowned upon Samurai Slaughter House, a physics-based VR combat game where you battle enemies in a wide sandbox inspired by anime and manga.

You can view the full list of finalists, as well as Liam, IGL, TTC, and Xsolla's individual picks over at the official PYG site, which include other impressive titles such as ABRISS and Selfloss, to name a couple. But this is all just a fraction of what showed up during the June event, and we certainly can't wait to see just what games appear during the December event. #PitchYaGame has been doing an amazing job so far, helping out the gaming community, and here's hoping that it continues to grow.