Play, Test, Repeat: Inside Our 2024 Digital Demo Day

On Thursday, May 2, 2024, UT Game Development and Design (GDAD) hosted its semesterly “Digital Demo Day” event, inviting UT students and industry professionals to “Level Up the Future” by enjoying the games and immersive experiences developed by GDAD students. 

Guests had the opportunity to experience many student works throughout Digital Demo Day, including 3D games engineered by students in Dr. Toprac’s 3D Game Development Capstone, computer-based animation, and geometric models developed in Dr. Abraham’s Computer Graphics course, and detailed video game and digital media productions created by students in Professor Chetty’s VFX for Storytelling course, and Professor Bays’ Comics and Cartoons and Video Game Production courses. 

Among some of the dozens of student works featured were games like Stellar Larceny, a thrilling zero-gravity space adventure, Nile Rhythm, a VR rhythm game where players ferry lost souls across the Duat, Featherbound, a single-player adventure puzzle game where players prove that they don’t need wings to reach great heights, and Banana Cowboy, an adventure platformer set in a fruit-themed universe where players liberate the fruit universe from their tyrannical twin brother. Each of these games were developed by a team of 5 – 7 students representing a variety of academic disciplines from AET, CS, and RTF, highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of the GDAD program. 

In addition to Digital Demo Day, UT GDAD hosted the Texas Power Hour, an event wherein Dr. Paul Toprac invited professionals from top companies like Zynga, Everi, and more to discuss the state of the game industry. Stephanie Whallon of the Texas Film Commission delivered the keynote speech. A panel of game industry executives, including Damion Shubert (Director at Netflix Games), Elizabeth Howard (VP at Bungie), Andrew Ice (VP at Zynga), and Rich Vogel (CEO at T-Minus Zero), discussed key strategies for industry growth in Texas. “The game industry is going through some tough times and UT Austin, being the #1 undergraduate game development program in the state of Texas, is the best place to host a forum to discuss growth and resiliency for Texas studios,” stated Dr. Paul Toprac, head of the GDAD Program. 

GDAD’s next Digital Demo Day will be held on Thursday, December 5, 2024; if you have any questions or are interested in attending, please contact Dr. Paul Toprac at topcat@cs.utexas.edu.  

---

The Game Development and Design (GDAD) Program at The University of Texas at Austin is an interdisciplinary undergraduate program between the departments of Arts and Entertainment Technologies, Computer Science, and Radio-Television-Film. The program produces graduates ready to design, develop, and provide leadership for the exploding growth in game, metaverse applications, and creative media agencies and studios in Texas and around the world.