I’ve been a fan of Kongregate for a while now, and was pleasantly surprised to see the rollout of their newest feature — Kongregate Labs. If you’re unfamiliar with Kongregate, it’s probably most easily described as a “YouTube for Flash games,” though with added achievements (a la the Xbox 360 and Blizzard’s games), a leveling system (which seems to translate mainly into fun bragging rights), and social networking functions (chatrooms, player/designer profiles, discussion forums, etc.). I’ve long been interested in Kongregate as the potential next step of online game design community, but with Kongregate Labs, they’re beginning to show that the next step is already here.

Kongregate Labs adds a number of interesting new features to the site — Flash tutorials (okay, “shootorials”), game customization tools, and game design contests (with cash money rewards, woo). Simultaneously providing “scaffolding” for new designers to learn how to make Flash games, as well as providing tools to implement new tweaks to games and means to earn revenue from game design, I know of nothing quite like this on the web currently. Kongregate is a fascinating community, bridging the world of “Web 2.0″ sites with game design.

Interestingly enough, this is exactly the realm I’m trying to better understand in my dissertation research. The predominance of Flash games makes it a worthwhile area to study in and of itself, but the ways that Kongreagate in particular adds community tools is stellar. What kinds of lessons can we learn about how to teach design skills, and what kinds of implications do sites like this have for everything from learning how to program through learning how to be an online entrepreneur?

Check out Kongregate Labs!