Low poly/high poly, rigging, skins, lighting/sound, scenes, Unreal Engine, Unity, character design, and lore. All are familiar terms to those creating new worlds and experiences to entertain and educate through games.
Game design and development has a long and storied history at IU Indianapolis (formerly IUPUI), specifically in the Human-Centered Computing Department at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering on that campus. Luddy Indianapolis faculty have partnered with various organizations, companies, and event venues over the years. Multiple Media Arts and Science (MAS) students have passed through their classrooms and alumni have gone on to careers in the industry, leaving behind a legacy of impactful experiences and projects. All of which has resulted in a critical mass poised to build something even bigger as Luddy continues to grow.
Extracurricular opportunities lead to student success
Global Game Jam 2024
While at Luddy, former MAS faculty Travis Faas organized a local Game Jam each year in partnership with the Indianapolis chapter of International Game Developers Association (IGDA), attended by both local community members and Luddy students. Teams spent the weekend, creating an original game from concept to playable, based on a prompt provided by Global Game Jam. Global Game Jam is an international event, connecting teams from around the world.
Frameshifters game at MagFest 2024
Faas also accompanied several students to Baltimore, Maryland for the 2024 MagFest, where they shared their own games, using a vinyl record as the controller. Faas demonstrated an upside down bicycle with the wheels used as controllers for a game.
In March 2024, Game Design and 3D Animation students traveled to San Francisco for GDC (Game Developers Conference), an annual week-long convention of gamers and game companies, which featured a number of workshops where the students could learn and network. They also visited nearby Pixar Studios where they experienced a behind-the-scenes tour courtesy of Luddy alumnus Frank Tai.
Students at Pixar Studios
Closer to home, students attended PopCon and GenCon, both taking place in Indianapolis. Two client games, The Mystery of Vee Island and You Gotta Regatta were demonstrated at the Luddy-sponsored booth during PopCon, while other students shared their Capstone projects nearby. At GenCon, Luddy faculty, staff, and students promoted the Game Design and Development degree program to attendees. Luddy had been an active presence at GenCon, where they first showcased their massive multiplayer game, Return to Aetheria, developed by students and faculty.
Advanced Game Development course
Each year, MAS faculty Mathew Powers‘ course in Advanced Game Development challenges experienced students to create an original, playable game in one semester, with each team composed of a project manager, writers, designers, and coders, much as they would be in industry, although at a smaller scale. The games are then uploaded to itch.io where they can be played by the public.
Examples over the past several years include titles like Fighter Diner, Cryptid Cuties, Eye Got You Covered, Rescue Mission: Rock Bottom, and Shafted: Relics of the Forgotten Depths.
Real-world development experience
Mystery of Vee Island and Ranger Roger’s Radar Rescue at PopCon
Of course, nothing engages students like hands-on client work or a personal passion project. Over the last decade, dozens of games—both serious and entertaining—have been designed and developed by students. The Mystery of Vee Island and Ranger Roger’s Radar Rescue are recent examples of a partnership between MAS faculty Powers and Todd Shelton‘s students at Luddy and NSWC Crane, which trains Navy engineers on specific skills through “gamication” of tasks.
You Gotta Regatta game demo at Luddy Capstone
Another team of students developed the You Gotta Regatta game at the request of Vice Chancellor PJ Woolston. The project began with MAS faculty Zeb Wood’s N420 Multimedia Production Development class and was expanded by several students for Capstone. The final interactive product, based on the popular annual campus event of canoe racing on the canal, was successfully used online as an admissions incentive by IU Indianapolis in the spring of 2024 and is being polished for re-release in Spring 2025.
Gamification has been used for other types of training and education as well. Wood has partnered with Hope Training Academy to teach computer repair to students in that program via a VR-enhanced game. Wood has also worked with the School of Medicine to research ways VR and biometrics can be paired to teach empathy, behavior, and social skills. That work has led to a start up, OpenMindXR, that Wood has established with his colleague Tom Hummer.
Riley Rehab Gamification App Design for Rehab Rascals
Students have also created their own serious games. Sisters Nithika and Rithika Elugulu designed and protoyped their board game Resilience Showdown as part of their master’s degree course and pitched it to companies interested in commercializing it. Riley Mineart and Jacqui Hill, both alumni, worked on aggression disorders and diabetes management games, respectively. Recent alumni Emma Ash and Jesus Andrade spun up their pediatric rehabilitation game developed for Riley Hospital for Children, into a start-up company, Bluum, this past fall.
Other student Capstone projects have a purely entertainment focus, such as Breakout High, developed for the now defunct BlueWall Video arcade in Castleton.
Curating the history of games: MARLA Museum
In addition to creating new, original games, faculty and students are committed to preserving their history. Powers has been collecting video games and upgrading original consoles for years with the assistance of alumnus Mike Lulgjuraj. This past year, with funding from an anonymous donor and administrative support from IU, Powers achieved museum status for the Media Arts and Science Learning Arcade (MARLA) at Luddy Indianapolis. Powers is an established expert in the genre, having also done work for Crash Course on the history of games.
The MARLA Museum has caught the attention of local, regional, and national media so far, attracting more opportunity to build on what has been established to date.
‘Next Level Indiana = Next Level Games’
In October 2023, MAS faculty Jacob Dobson, Faas, Shelton, Powers, Wood, and several students traveled to Ball State University to take part in the Symposium on Games. Wood gave a talk, entitled, “Next Level Jobs Require Next Level Games Education”, where he urged the state to consider that while Indiana needs tech talent they may be looking in the wrong direction.
“Indiana colleges graduate THOUSANDS of talented young minds, either exported to other tech hubs or suffering in jobs they don’t care about at home. While manufacturing, healthcare, sports, education, and marketing sectors are growing and gaining state and private sector investment, ‘games’ can be a central catalyst in transforming the state’s tech and digital economy,” he said.
Media Contact
Joanne Lovrinic
jebehele@iu.edu
317-278-9208