Three Rings (makers of Puzzle Pirates and Bang! Howdy) has just released an online virtual world, called Whirled, based around player creation of games, avatars, and other interactive content. The tools for building the world and creating games, written in Flash and Java, are made available to the players along with tools for collaborative design, implementation and an in-game market for the sale of their products to other players.

In this workshop we will introduce the basic concepts behind the architecture of the Whirled platform as well as the technologies it provides to support multiplayer game creation. Then we'll have participants work in small groups to create something that works in the Whirled, be that a game or avatar or some other interactive toy. They will discover how easy it can be to make a fun multiplayer experience with the right tools.

There will be actual software writing going on in this workshop (in Flash or Java, your choice), so you'll need a laptop and a text editor, and some programming experience (or a friend with same). We'll provide the toolkit and useful advice.