Mobile Games developer XMG Studios and the National Post are holding the second edition of The Great Canadian Appathon this weekend and TIFF Nexus sat down with Appathon organizer Andrew Kamondy of XMG Studios to learn more about this exciting student-focused competition  that boasts over $50,000 in prizes.

TIFF Nexus: What is the Great Canadian Appatathon²? What’s involved?

Andrew Kamondy: Great Canadian Appatahon² is a challenge to students across Canada to build a mobile video game in 48 hours.

Could you talk a bit about the genesis of the Great Canadian Appathon? Was it a case of noticing a gap in opportunities for young developers and seeing a means of filling it?

There are a lot of these hackathons and a lot of these coding competitions where people create games and we thought it would be great to do one that really focused on the student community and one that was really strongly promoted and strongly rewarded. The prize money is $25,000 which is a great prize for the winning team.

Could you speak to the value of competitions such as these, beyond the financial benefits and from an industry perspective?

#1: It is to find great talent. #2: It is to get great games into our portfolio and share in the development process with the students. #3: It is also a great way to get students believing that they can make video games for mobile phones. It’s a great way for them to get involved in this new industry.

We hired three people out of the last Canadian Appathon and we’re publishing the top three games from the last Canadian Appathon before the grand finale of the Great Canadian Appatathon².

That’s fantastic! What kind of games made the Top 3?

The winner was a game called Super Punch. It is a really comical game where you are a super hero and you’ve captured a villain and you’re going to give him the final super-punch and you’ve got to send him as far as possible with one punch.

Our second place game was built in 3D, which is amazing what they did in 48 hours. You are in a plane going through a battlefield.

These sound great. Now this competition is in 48 hours, do you feel like that time-crunch affects what games get made?

Well, they’re building prototypes. They do an amazing job and it’s incredible to see what they’re building, but in reality it is just a prototype. We tested this model of hackathon at XMG and the game that we created was called Cows vs. Aliens and that game now is in the App Store and is one of our top games. But the 48 hours we took created the prototype, and then we took 2-3 weeks to polish it and develop it and put it into the market.

Games are going to be evaluated for a host of distinct characteristics, but is XMG looking for something in particular? Are there avenues you’re hoping to see participants try and pursue in this challenge?

This time around we are giving the competition a theme, so they’re going to have to develop around this theme. With the 48 hour time-crunch and a theme, we’re really interested to see what they come up with.

But in terms of technology, its open-platform this time around. Last time we developed for Windows Phone 7, this time its open platform because we feel it gives them a lot more creative liberty. If a kid wants to develop for Android or iPhone, it is up to them and we don’t want to stifle that since we’re giving them these time and theme restrictions.

How did you select the theme? Where is it coming from?

It is coming from me and the CEO of XMG saying “Let’s do this theme!” [Laughs]

I’ll end with the age-old “Where do we send people to find out more information and learn how to participate?”

www.greatcanadianappathon.com. All registration goes through there. Now this is Toronto right? There are some great HUBS in Toronto, at Ryerson, UofT, Humber, York.

I will spread the word.