Three Rings has announced its inaugural Flash Game Developer Challenge for Whirled, a player-created virtual world. If you're not familiar with Whirled, here's the basics:

Whirled is a complete, self-serve Flash game development platform. Using Whirled it is possible to create and charge for virtual items, single and multiplayer games, avatars, furnishings, and much more by selling directly to players.

OK, now that we're all up to speed, let's talk about the challenge, which will occur every three months. Flash game developers who create games using the Whirled API can win some big cash prizes in categories for both single-player and multi-player games. First place for single-player is $2,000, while the top prize for multi-player is a whopping $7,500. Developers can even earn money based on the number of minutes their games are played.

The deadline for the first contest is Jan. 31, 2009. More information can be found after the jump. Even if you're not a developer, check out Whirled to give some other games a try.

SAN FRANCISCO – Three Rings, a leading independent developer of casual massively multi-player games, has announced the inaugural Flash Game Developer Challenge for its player-created virtual world and Flash game development platform, Whirled.  Flash developers who create games using the Whirled APIs can compete for $25,000 in cash prizes every three months.  In addition to the Challenge, Three Rings also announced that all Flash game developers on Whirled are eligible for the Game Developer Bonus Bling Pool, a $10,000 monthly cash pool split daily among game developers in direct proportion to the number of gameplay minutes their game represents of the overall total on Whirled.

The Flash Game Developer Challenge occurs on a quarterly basis and is divided into two categories for single player and multiplayer games.  All games uploaded to Whirled during the contest period that comply with conditions listed on the Three Rings website are eligible.  Entries for the initial contest are currently being submitted.  The submission deadline for the first contest is January 31, 2009.  For more information, visit the Whirled Flash Game Developer Challenge website at: http://www.whirled.com/#landing-gamecontest

“Jump aboard mates; the Whirled platform is our way of opening up the microtransaction model to the greater independent game development community,” said Daniel James, CEO, Three Rings.  With a nod to the community, the contest will be judged by a who’s who of casual game development including Brad Borne (The Fancy Pants Adventures), Terry Brown (Protector), Colin Northway (Fantastic Contraption), Miles Tilman (Dino Run) and Daniel James (Puzzle Pirates).

As an in-browser virtual world that is open to player creations and customizations, anything from simple image furniture to mini-MMO games can be uploaded to Whirled.  Sophisticated avatars, pets, toys and games are coded to Whirled’s Flash ActionScript APIs, which support multi-player games with arbitrary numbers of players driven by client or server-side code.

“To give developers a leg up, we provide the source code and assets for Three Rings’ original games and other content,” said Michael Bayne, CTO and co-founder.  “Our powerful APIs, open-source content, transparent business terms and tell-all approach to metrics make Whirled an ideal platform for independent developers.”

To find out more about Three Rings and Whirled, visit wiki.whirled.com