Whirled (Beta)

By: Derek Yu

On: April 11th, 2008

Hmmm, this is most definitely intriguing. Ian McConville, who’s probably best known for his work on the webcomic Mac Hall, joined Three Rings (Puzzle Pirates) in 2006 as an artist. What he has been working on there was anyone’s guess until about a week ago, when he revealed Whirled to the world (via his new webcomic with Matt Boyd, called Three Panel Soul).

At first glance, Whirled appears to be your average game portal/social network, but it’s a bit more than that. Ian describes it on TPS as “a Flash-Based Object Oriented Multi-User Dungeon.” Three Rings calls it “a web-based social world fueled at every turn by player created content.”

Aside from playing games alone or with other players, you can create your own Flash games and hook them up to Whirled via a free multiplayer library supplied by Three Rings. Ian himself designed a simple brawler (see image) with it that’s pretty awesome.

In the games you can earn points which can be used to buy things, including assets (avatars, pets, etc.) created by other players. You can also create a personalized “room” from the ground up and then connect it to other players’ rooms. These rooms can be embedded into any website, where anyone, account or not, can access it (guests show up as little ghost avatars).

It’s obviously early in the beta, but I’m excited by the idea… it seems like the next logical step for social networks, game portals, and MMOG’s could be right here.

(Source: Transfer, via Sensible Erection [NSFW])