Washington-based casual MMO developer Thinglefin, Inc., has announced the completion of a Series A financing round led by California Technology Ventures.

The new financing will provide Thinglefin with the ability to self-fund development of their unannounced massively multiplayer game. According to Thinglefin, the game will run in a Web browser and be free-to-play.

"In all seriousness, there will be modestly priced premium features that we hope people find attractive, but they are certainly not required to play the game. And honestly, we expect the vast majority of our audience will play for free," said Thinglefin founder Toby Ragaini on Thinglefin's blog.

"To that point, we’re not going to create a free-player 'ghetto' by segregating the paying and non-paying audiences," Ragaini added. "As a gameplay experience, our customers will benefit from all the people playing, whether they are paying customers or otherwise."

Ragaini also added that Thinglefin is developing a casual game-- which, from his perspective, means accessibility.

"Accessible refers to the fact that you don’t need to purchase, download, or install any software. You can play it in a browser whenever you’re interested enough to come check it out," Ragaini clarified, also touting the game's "shallow learning curve" as "a fancy way of saying its easy to play. There are no complicated inputs or instructions. If you can use a mouse, and manage an AIM buddy list, you can play our game."

Ragaini also envisions a multiplayer game that will "reward any amount of time that players can afford to spend playing it. If you can spare 5 minutes, you will have fun. If you want to invest more of your time, the game will reward you with increasing layers of depth and replayability."

“We have high expectations for our investment in Thinglefin. The audience for Web-based casual games continues to expand, creating enormous opportunities,” stated Alex Suh, Managing Director of California Technology Ventures. “The Thinglefin team has a compelling vision for how to reach new audiences and retain those customers with a combination of accessibility and engaging gameplay.”

“We’re going to be creating a dialogue with gamers,” said Ragaini. “We’re looking forward to receiving feedback from our audience when it’s the most actionable: during development.”

Hit the jump for the full release.