Gendai Games on Monday announced it is teaming up with IDG World Expo to launch the Macworld 2010 GameSalad Challenge, which runs between now and January 25, 2010 and challenges participants to “make the most innovative, creative, and fun video games for the Mac and iPhone” with GameSalad Creator for Mac.

Gendai said it will announce finalists on January 29, 2010, and the grand prize winner will be decided by a panel of judges and Twitter participation, with each weighted equally. All finalists will receive a Macworld 2010 Platinum Pass and have their games showcased during the awards presentation – the grand prize winner will get all that plus a GameSalad Pro membership and an iPod touch.

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.