Gendai Games on Wednesday announced the five finalists of its GameSalad game creation contest. All five, which were chosen by a panel of judges from 32 entries, are available for play now on the GameSalad web site: Bork’s Adventure, the skill game Kill the King, the maze games Stunt Squirrels! and The Cat Rides the Astrobus, and the arcade title Traffic Ninja.

Those who entered the five games have received Platinum Passes for next week’s Macworld Expo in San Francisco, where attendees will be able to play the games, learn tips and tricks for using the GameSalad game creation tool, and participate in a daily mini-game jam that awards the winner a GameSalad Express Membership.

The contest’s grand prize winner, who will receive an iPod touch and a GameSalad Pro Membership, will be announced during a ceremony at the GameSalad booth on Saturday, Feb. 13.

GameSalad Creator is a free application, but users who want to deploy their games on iPhone need to pay US$99 a year ($299 for the enterprise version) to join Apple's iPhone developer program. And if they want to create and deploy an unlimited number of games, they need to pay an annual GameSalad subscription: $99 for GameSalad Express and $1,999 for GameSalad Pro. However, both give game creators 100% of the royalties generated by their games at the App Store.

The pro version of the GameSalad subscription offers several additional benefits, including a custom loading screen (indie developers have to use a loading screen with the GameSalad logo); the ability to endorse web pages and other iPhone apps within the game; advanced analytics; integration with social networks, such as Facebook Connect capability; online leader boards using custom servers; and more.