Doof mixes up Flash Web games with just about everything

Doof is a new Flash games service that's attempting to give people single and multplayer Flash gaming in one spot with a creative spin. Doof takes a virtual desktop approach to managing a playspace, with floating windows the likes of some Web OS services we've looked at. You can have as many opened up as you'd like, and they can be minimized, organized, and tweaked to look any way you want. When actually playing a game, however, it'll take control of your screen, darkening everything else on your Webtop.

The smattering of games is what makes Doof worth looking at. You'll find many classic clones, along with some first-party classic titles like Asteroids and Space Invaders. Games can be played in a "quick play" setting that jumps you into a single player match, or you can play the odds and go up against another Doof player. Here's where things get interesting--you can incrementally buy into various levels of tournament play against other people using virtual credits. You can either buy these credits in chunks (using real money), or win them with skill against others. You start out with 10, which is enough to get you into a couple of multiplayer tournaments with the chance to win from others.

In addition to games, Doof mixes up a variety of community features. Most notably each member gets their own profile page which tracks game achievements, play history, and can let you pull in your photos from Facebook. There's also a microblogging platform the likes of Facebook's status message, which Doof calls "Pulse," along with an RSS ticker that grabs the latest headlines from a little over a dozen sites. Like everything else on the site, the entire experience is handled through windows, instead of jumping you from page to page. There are also no advertisements.

Where Doof shines is its interface, which is highly customizable and open to a lot of new things that can be built in later down the line. In many ways it reminds me a lot of iminlikewithyou, although with less emphasis on user profiles and more on the games. Compared to a competitor like Kongregate, Doof is treading a slightly different path. Their games may have a bit more immediate polish, but there's not a developers network in sight. Cheapskates will prefer Kongregate for its free multiplayer gaming, which you can't get away with on Doof (unless you're a good gamer), along with a much larger library of playable games.

Play all sorts of games with other people, or just by yourself with Doof, a Flashy new games site.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

[dominikmayer]

Don't they know or don't they care that "doof" is the German word for "dumb"?

[Josh.Lowensohn]

Dict.cc tells me it can mean "silly" or "goofy" too. ;)

(http://www.dict.cc/german-english/doof.html)