Via Slashdot comes this Kotaku article from the creator of Tringo, on how you too can make a hit casual game. If you don’t know what Tringo is, or if you are just curious. Check out the article!

By now you’ve probably heard of Tringo, the Tetris-meets-Bingo game created in the user-created on line world Second Life– it’s the casual game that became so popular in-world, its creator sold the rights for a Web spin off, a GBA port, and now, incredibly, for a TV game show. This is possible because SL’s Terms of Service allow subscribers to retain the IP rights to anything they create in-world. That feature, plus a potential audience of a quarter million SL subscribers and growing, plus the ability to sell the in-world currency you earn for real US$, and you’d think Second Life would be an indy game developer’s dream platform.

But Tringo hit the world in early 2005, and since then, no SL game has come anywhere close to its success. When I was still on staff with Linden Lab (the company behind Second Life), in addition to my work as the world’s embedded journalist , I helped design and run Linden’s annual Game Developer Contest, promoting game creation in SL. I brought in veteran designers like Harvey Smith (Deus Ex) and Doug Church (Thief: The Dark Project) to help judge the entrants; like me, they were impressed by the ambition and talent that went into them. But even with their imprimatur, none of the winning games went on to become the next Tringo.After co-creating three such contests, and watching other SL games come and go, I’ve managed to synthesize my observations on what works and what doesn’t into a handful of tips.

The Game Developer’s Guide to Pwning Second Life - Kotaku

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