BATON ROUGE- A new program is initiating the increase of the indie game community in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and educating students on the gaming industry.  

      Level Up Labs is a new program that started about 4 years ago to take the initiative on increasing the indie game community in Louisiana,and even bring the program into college classrooms to teach  students about the gaming industry.  

     Many people don’t believe that Louisiana is a big player in the gaming industry, which is usually focused in California or New York, but the founder of King Crow Studios and Business Developer for Louisiana Technology Park, Cody Louvier said that he’s known this for years.

“We’ve been making games in Louisiana now for upwards to seven years now,” Louvier said.

“That’s exclusively boot-strap companies starting here and trying to develop their own products.” 

This way, anyone that is interested in going into the gaming industry in Louisiana, might not have to move far away from their families and friends to get work. 

Level Up Labs have also been making plans to put these programs in college curriculums. 

 “We’re currently working with different educational entities like LSU, AIE, BRCC and some of them have existing program and other ones are introducing them,” Louivier said. 

 ”We have a lot of talent here in Louisiana and we want to keep them here. so, we want to be able to educate them and then get them jobs.”

 The gaming industry is growing and many people are interested in going into that kind of work, to change their passions into a job, and some can get the training while in college to get them better prepared for the future in that industry. 

Level Up Labs is trying to change the indie game industry right here, in Louisiana’s community to keep talented people here.