The Game Creation Club will be organizing a multi-day meetup during the Ludum Dare 23 competition so you can work on your games in the company of others. Ludum Dare is a internationally held game jam that is celebrating it’s tenth anniversary. Participants have a limited amount of time to create a game. Ludum Dare brings two events to the table – you can either participate in the stricter Competition (48 hours, you’re on your own, all content made during those 48 hours except personal code libraries publicly declared beforehand, source code will be uploaded with the game, the games are judged) on the more relaxed Jam (72 hours, you can work on your own or in a team, source code is not required, games are not judged). While we will not be meeting for the full event, it is more than enough to gather a team for the Jam, and nearly complete the Competition. For complete Ludum Dare rules, see http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/rules/

The games will be built around a theme announced on Day 1 of the jam. Creativity is highly encouraged – experiment with game mechanics you’ve always wanted to mess around with, try a new art style, or come up with a type of game that nobody’s ever seen! The condensed nature of game jams allow you to do just that without fear of wasting a bunch of time (and money) on new ideas that may or may not work. Related to this, we wish to stress that A GAME JAM IS NOT A CONTEST. If you learn something over the course of the weekend, you win. Of course, a little friendly competition among groups never hurt anyone.

Ludum Dare (both the Jam and the Competition) will kick off at 9:00 PM Friday. You can arrive as early as 5:30 to set up, get ready, do some mental calisthenics, whatever. We have the remainder of that day (until midnight) at the Ohio Union’s Cartoon Room 2 (3rd floor), from 9 AM to 1 AM in the Great Hall Meeting Room 2 (1st floor) on Saturday, and from 10 AM to 6:30 PM in the Ohio Staters Inc., Traditions Room (2nd floor) on Sunday. Don’t believe us? The Competition will end at 9:00 PM on Sunday, and the Jam ends at 9:00 PM on Monday.

You will have to bring your own tech to work on games. Like the Global Game Jam, we are limited by Ohio Union building hours each day. You are free to continue work on your game after hours elsewhere.

We have a 30-person limit for all days. We ask that you fill out a simple form to reserve a spot. We will contact you by email if necessary with any important updates if they arise. In the event we have more than 30 people, people who sign up earlier will have priority. As with the Global Game Jam, anyone is welcome to come, not just GCC members or OSU students.

If you have questions about the event or game jams in general, feel free to comment or email gamecreationclub at yahoo dot com, or snoop around the Ludum Dare site at http://www.ludumdare.com/.

GCC members have the potential to get points for this event: A maximum of ten points will be given for signing the sign in sheet for all three days. Having something to show at the end of the game jam (regardless of how good it is) will get you another 10 points. Lastly, you’ll get points for your final product.