GameSalad Challenge game design finalists announced

The GameSalad Challenge finalists have been announced. Why should this matter to you? Because the winners will be announced at Macworld Expo 2010, and until TellTale Games hopped on board, the GameSalad Challenge was all the gaming you were going to get there. Those attending Macworld Expo can stop by booth #1478 to play the finalists’ games, attend various training sessions on the GameSalad tool, and participate in a daily mini-game jam on the show floor where the winner receives a GameSalad Express Membership as a prize.

Gendai Games, the makers of GameSalad, an authoring tool created to support amateur and professional game development, has enlisted judges from the Mac and gaming communities to select five finalists for the Macworld 2010 GameSalad Challenge. For the past five weeks, participants have submitted their GameSalad-created games in the GameSalad Challenge. The Macworld 2010 GameSalad Challenge finalists are:

• Bork’s Adventure by Elie Hang, Justin Knapich, and Ben Knapp.
• The Cat Rides the Astrobus by Drew Daycross and Jamie Potter.
• Kill the King by Eastbound Studios.
• Stunt Squirrels by Fire Maple Games.
• Traffic Ninja by Steve Hoffman.

The winner of the Macworld 2010 GameSalad Challenge will be announced during an award ceremony at the GameSalad booth on Saturday, February 13th.

“I was really impressed at the diversity present in the submissions for the GameSalad Challenge,” said judge Omaha Sternberg, producer of the iGame Radio Podcast. “There were some real creative ideas in game design, art, and sound. There are budding game developers growing in the GameSalad community.”

The games were reviewed by judges: Michael Agustin (Gendai Games), Jason Citron (Aurora Feint), Omaha Sternberg (iGame Radio), Zachary Waibel (Tricky Software), and Sean Vanaman (Telltale Games). Kill The King, Stunt Squirrels and Traffic Ninja can already be found on the iPhone App Store. All five finalists’ games are now at www.gamesalad.com/macworld. For a full list of GameSalad events at the Macworld Expo, please visit www.macworldexpo.com/gamesalad.