Freaky Deaky Flashback, released May 8 in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, is meant to act as a prequel to the Michigan-made film Freaky Deaky, which is based on the novel of the same title by Elmore Leonard.

“Normally with apps that are based on movies, it’s really promotional,” Girard said. “In ours, we have a lot more content — three mini-games, a whole bunch of items to purchase. Even if you hadn’t seen the movie, you would still want to download the app.”

The app, set in the 1970s, has a set of three different games that engage the player in the backstory of the movie. Brian Winn, the lead designer of the app, said the mini-games are inspired by other popular games such as Fruit Ninja, Time Crisis and Temple Run.

Winn said the app has reached nearly 80,000 downloads along with generally positive reviews.

The eight students who created the app all were students in the Game Design and Development specialization offered at MSU, Winn said. As a result of the Game Design and Development specialization, MSU has been rated as number 10 in Princeton Review’s ““Top 15 Undergraduate Schools to Study Video Game Design for 2013”:http://www.princetonreview.com/game-design-press-release.aspx.”

Winn, who also is the Director of the Games for Entertainment and Learning Lab at MSU, said three different majors feed into the specialization: media and information, computer science and art. The program featured 38 students during the past academic year and generally acts as a two-year program spanning students’ junior and senior years.

“There is a lot of interest in it,” Winn said. “Some students end up not continuing on; they figure out making games isn’t just fun and games. (For some,) it starts as a hobby and then they turn their hobby into their career.”

The specialization had four different projects that served as the capstone course for students in the specialization with Freaky Deaky Flashback being one of those projects.

Recent graduate Matthew Vorce, was one of the students selected by Winn to work on Freaky Deaky Flashback. Vorce, who studied computer science at MSU, served as the lead student programmer.

“I think it really augmented my computer science skills,” Vorce said. “It showed me all the things that I didn’t gain from just computer science curriculum. It got me the job I have now.”

Robert Cantrell, the executive producer of Freaky Deaky Flashback said he was extremely impressed by the work of the students and he hopes it opens up more opportunities for video game development in Michigan.

“They (MSU) have an incredibly skilled and talented group of young people as good as anyone anywhere,” Cantrell said. “It’s been a fabulous experience and I’m very encouraged.”