Rock Paper Scissors, the developers of Dizzywood, a virtual world and online game for children ages 8-12 have announced that it has surpassed 500,000 registered users since its beta launch in November 2007, claiming rapid growth with "thousands" of new users joining each day.

Dizzywood was recently investigated as part of our Online World Atlas, where we noted it is "a bit of a contradiction. The world doesn't look great and the technology behind it isn't particularly special. The games included are (mostly) derivative and boring. But it's brilliant fun to explore, and a great place to meet and collaborate with other players to discover its mysteries."

Dizzywood was developed to "encourage children to use their imagination, cooperate with others, and participate in activities that promote caring, honesty, respect and responsibility, among other important values – all in a setting that is safe, interactive and fun," and remains free-to-play with subscriptions for premium content to become available "in the future."

"Getting to this scale shows how Dizzywood can both capture the imagination of kids and promote safe, high quality online interaction from them, by encouraging teamwork and collaborative play" said co-founder Sean Uberoi Kelly. "We're encouraged by the strong word-of-mouth growth we've seen, as well as the validation of our approach we've received through our partnerships with elementary schools and the YMCA."