NEWPORT, Wales--Papermint, the social networking game that has taken Germany and Austria by storm, will be getting an English-language version before the end of the year, revealed Barbara Lippe, lead artist at developer Avaloop, at the recent Women in Games conference.

　　The site, which was launched in German on March 21, already has 2,000 players signed up. It is developed and run by Avaloop Immersive Worlds, a Vienna-based independent game development studio where, it turns out, "all the creative lead forces" are women.

　　The game uses a mixture of 2D and 3D environments in a world that has more unique, cartoonlike graphics than most current networking offerings. Lippe commented, "It's for people who don't want to work too much in an online game. It's very different to everything else out there. There's no hyperrealism. We're moving away from this obsession with realism."

　　Papermint also offers a number of minigames to play, including searching for and collecting flowers to barter for other objects, such as clothing and furniture, and more which can be accessed via arcade machines inside people's virtual houses.

　　The game has had a huge amount of publicity in Avaloop's native country. Lippe said, "Suddenly we were everywhere."

　　Lippe said that much of the media coverage made the obvious comparison between established online worlds, including Second Life and the recently announced PlayStation Home. Lippe commented, "We are not the second Second Life. We know that lots of people have played Second Life. But how many people actually enjoyed it? Exactly. That's the difference. And yes, Papermint is like Home, but Papermint is also charming."

　　Another big difference between Second Life and Home is that there is not complete freedom in Papermint. Whereas Second Life has red-light districts and sexual content, there will be none of that in the wholesome Papermint. Lippe laughed, "We don't believe in freedom. There's no pornography or gambling. It's innocent fun for everyone."

　　Papermint will be free to play and will be released in an English-language version on both PCs and Macs before the end of the year.