Y.GRAM Partners with The Sandbox to Host ‘Aeko and Friends’ Local Game Jam with 50,000 SAND in Rewards

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Y.GRAM Partners with The Sandbox to Host ‘Aeko and Friends’ Local Game Jam with 50,000 SAND in Rewards

2024-08-07 11:00 Last Updated At：11:11

SUNCHEON, South Korea--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 6, 2024--

Meta content company Y.GRAM has teamed up with the global Web3 metaverse platform The Sandbox to host the Numberland Game Jam centered around the upcoming EBS (Educational Broadcasting System)-aired meta animation IP, "Aeko and Friends."

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240805749972/en/

‘Aeko and Friends’ is a new type of educational meta animation where the world and characters of the math play animation ‘Aeko and Friends (Season 1, aired on EBS in 2019)’ IP are applied to the metaverse. Avatar players directly perform math game missions, such as number play, comparison, patterns, and classification, introducing gamification elements to make math learning enjoyable.

The Numberland Game Jam is a user-generated content (UGC) competition open to creators from The Sandbox. It is noteworthy as it represents the leading metaverse platform’s first local Game Jam in Korea. This event invites participants to use The Sandbox’s free 3D creation tools, VoxEdit and Game Maker, to create diverse metaverse game content based on the theme of "Aeko and Friends." Participants will create immersive metaverse content based on the world and story of "Aeko and Friends," to be featured in an upcoming EBS animation airing later this year. Submissions must be made online.

Registration for the Game Jam is open from August 1 to August 15, with submission dates from August 8 to August 29.

With a prize pool of 50,000 SAND, the Game Jam offers one of the largest rewards for a local event. Outstanding creators will receive a share of the 50,000 SAND prize pool, and non-winning entries may be considered for inclusion in Y.GRAM’s EBS animation and UGC content. Selected works might also be considered for publication in The Sandbox’s virtual world or as part of the EBS animation backdrop.

More details about the "Aeko and Friends" IP and the Numberland Game Jam theme can be found in the AMA (Ask Me Anything) video on The Sandbox’s official YouTube channel.

For further questions, join Y.GRAM’s official Discord. Real-time Q&A on Discord will be available from July 25 until August 30, 9 AM to 7 PM.

For more information, visit The Sandbox’s event page, Y.GRAM’s Discord, X (Twitter), or Medium channels.

Hungary welcomes Netanyahu and announces it's quitting top war crimes court

2025-04-03 19:06 Last Updated At：19:11

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Hungary's capital early Thursday to red carpet treatment despite a warrant for his arrest issued by the world's top war crimes court.

Hungary's government, led by its populist prime minister and Netanyahu ally, Viktor Orbán, used the occasion of the Israeli leader's visit to announce it will begin the procedure of withdrawing from the international tribunal that issued the warrant, the International Criminal Court.

Just as Netanyahu met with Orbán for a welcome with full military honors in Budapest's Castle District, Orbán's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, wrote in a brief statement that “the government will initiate the withdrawal procedure on Thursday, in accordance with the constitutional and international legal framework.”

At the welcoming ceremony kicking off Netanyahu's visit, only his second foreign trip since the ICC issued the warrant against him in November, he stood alongside Orbán as a military band played and an elaborate processions of soldiers on horseback and carrying swords and bayoneted rifles marched by.

The two leaders were set to hold talks later on Thursday, and Netanyahu was also to meet Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok in the Presidential Palace.

The Israeli leader will spend several days in Hungary before departing on Sunday.

The ICC, based in The Hague, Netherlands, said when issuing its warrant there was reason to believe Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, and intentionally targeted civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas — charges that Israeli officials deny.

After the ICC issued the warrant in November, Orbán accused the world's only permanent global tribunal for war crimes and genocide of “interfering in an ongoing conflict for political purposes,” saying the move undermined international law and escalated tensions.

His invitation to Netanyahu was in open defiance of the court's ruling. Hungary joined the court in 2001 during Orbán's first term as prime minister.

Currently, all countries in the 27-member European Union including Hungary are signatories, and all members are required to detain suspects facing a warrant if they set foot on their soil. But the court relies on member countries to enforce that.

Reacting to Hungary's decision to leave the court, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar thanked Orbán for the move, writing on X: “I commend Hungary’s important decision to withdraw from the ICC.”

“The so-called ‘International Criminal Court’ lost its moral authority after trampling the fundamental principles of international law in its zest for harming Israel’s right to self-defense,” Saar wrote. “Thank you Hungary for your clear and strong moral stance alongside Israel and the principles of justice and sovereignty!”

Netanyahu in February met U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, where Trump suggested that displaced Palestinians in Gaza be permanently resettled outside the war-torn territory and proposed the U.S. take “ownership” in redeveloping the area into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

Neither the United States or Israel are signatories to the ICC. Trump in February issued sanctions against the court for its investigations into Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, many of them children.

The ICC has criticized Hungary’s decision to defy its warrant for Netanyahu. The court’s spokesperson, Fadi El Abdallah, earlier said it’s not for parties to the ICC “to unilaterally determine the soundness of the Court’s legal decisions.” On Thursday, he said the court “recalls that Hungary remains under a duty to cooperate with the ICC.”