One more weigh-in from the Virtual Worlds Forum -- over at GigaOM, Wagner James Au gives his own "promising" top three from the event, all of them European worlds that we may have to wait a bit to see on our shores.

One of his picks is one we really liked when we first heard about it at Virtual Worlds Fall earlier this month -- the mobile virtual world, MoiPal, which tasks you with the care of a Tamagotchi-type creature.

Au also joins us in appreciating Avaloop's Papermint, and MindCandy (of Perplex City renown)'s Moshi Monsters, the so-ugly-they're-cute cell phone creatures with a tie-in virtual world and social networking elements.

Good picks, all three united by a sort of off-beat, artistic theme. One thing Au points out that I think is critical about these three is that their stylistic elements enable them to appeal to a much broader age group -- they're neither distinctly childish nor distinctly adult. Think the huge popularity of Nintendo's Pokémon games, which have a broad fan base among 7-10 year old kids -- the primary audience -- as well as among teens and adults in the video gaming audience.

[Via GigaOM]