SENSATIONAL

INNOVATE • Cover storyThe home of Rudy Janvier (centre) was the site of the developmentof Super Punch, the mobile game app that won the spring 2011 GreatCanadian Appathon. After the contest, Janvier joined (from bottomleft) Jeremy Burns, Tyler Ste. Marie, Pieter Parker and Stephen Badento form Bitshift Games Inc.The game is simple. The villainous Dr. Competent awaits you ona dark city street. A frantic, funky soundtrack plays out in blipsand beeps on your smartphone’s tiny speaker. Dr. Competentdoesn’t actually seem that bad: he’s short and lab-coated, andlooks imported from a G-rated comic strip. Nevertheless justicemust be served, and you’re just the superhero to do it. When yourpower meter spikes, you start punching by tapping and swipingyour screen, sending Dr. Competent spinning into deep space on aparabolic flight that eventually brings him back to earth. That’s it.Game over. Maybe 30 seconds have passed.That’s Super Punch, one of the latest entries into the casual gamemarket for mobile devices. Besides being simple, it’s pointless andenough fun to make it one of the top apps on your smartphone or tablet.Or at least that’s what NAIT Digital Media and IT (DMIT) student TylerSte. Marie is banking on as one of the founders of Bitshift Games Inc.,the Edmonton startup responsible for Super Punch, available this fall inthe Windows Marketplace.From a business perspective, the game is already an enviablesuccess. This spring, its earliest form earned Ste. Marie and partnersPieter Parker, Jeremy Burns and Stephen Baden the $25,000 top prize atthe Great Canadian Appathon, a 48-hour coding contest that drew 100teams from across Canada.That has put the group in the unusual position of being a startupwith its bank balance in the black. The prize funded the founding of thecompany following the Appathon, but the competition also highlightedother advantages. In 48 hours, the team created a working prototypewith nothing more than laptops and workspace at the home of RudyJanvier (Computer Engineering Technology ’08), a friend who has sincejoined Bitshift. In other words, overhead is exceptionally low. And as“big video game nerds,” the talent is already in place, says Ste. Marie,one of the artists behind the game. “Learning to be entrepreneurs: that’sgoing to be the toughest thing.”34 techlifemag.ca