Gamers descended upon the Entertainment Arts & Engineering (EAE) program’s Dec. 12 Open House to sample student-created video games. Among princesses, pirates and cyber thieves headlining the event were resurrected dodos in the PC game Last March of the Dodos.
The game, developed by nine students in the EAE Master’s in Game Design track, was previewed and celebrated at the Open House for its Dec. 13 publication as a free, downloadable game on Desura.com. Publication via independent platform, which is part of the curriculum, enables gamers worldwide to defend the game’s tropical islands from neon-colored dodos by trapping or tricking them.
Last March of the Dodo’s publication attracted the attention of journalists from Fox 13 and ABC 4 interested in the student team behind the game’s squawking birds and blasting bombs. Each interviewed the game’s producer, Jesse Ferraro, about video game production and the University of Utah program behind it all.
Last March of the Dodos is the latest in a string of EAE student-developed video games to earn publication by gaming companies based on their technical merits and overall quality. The EAE program is the result of interdisciplinary collaboration between the College of Engineering and College of Fine Arts. The Princeton Review ranked the EAE program number one for its undergraduate program and number two for its graduate program in 2013.