Over a year ago, I started up a Discord called "Ball State University Game Design & Development." It's a slowly growing community that includes students, staff, faculty, and alumni. It's mostly quiet, but we sometimes talk about games or game design. I also gives me a place to post about opportunities and encourage participation in them. I hope we are starting to see some fruits from this effort since last weekend we had an unprecedented number of BSU-affiliated people participate in Ludum Dare 51. This included one alumnus and four students.
I wrote about my project and my sons' projects two days ago. Here are links to the other projects I know of that came from BSU. If you know of more, let me know, and I will add them to my list!
I am hopeful that this is positive momentum and that we'll get even more in the future. The Fall Ludum Dare tends to come at the best time. It's a couple of weeks in the semester, so I can encourage students and even incentivize their participation. For example, my CS222 students can earn an achievement by participating in a jam (although none did, as far as I know), and I gave my CS315 students the option to do Ludum Dare instead of their normal weekly work. The next Ludum Dare is in January before the semester starts, which means more people may have free time, but there's no opportunity for in-person nor course-based encouragement. The Spring one tends to fall right before final exams, when students are overwhelmed with work, though I tend to be in a mode where I'm just answering questions and waiting for projects to come in. This pushes me slightly back in the direction of hosting a local jam in Spring. We'll see how the semester goes!
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