Wouldn’t it be great to play quality games within your Web browser and not have to install extra applications to get them running? Sure it would. That's why The Casual Collective is worth taking a look at.

The Casual Collective on Tuesday announced that it raised $1 Million in VC funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, the Silicon Valley outfit that's also invested in successful startups, such as RockYou and Flixster.

Paul Preece and David Scott, the founders of The Casual Collective, are also the creators of two very successful games: Desktop Tower Defense and Flash Element TD. Both Preece and Scott have been named "superstars of the casual gaming world" by CNet. 

Social gaming is rising in popularity and The Casual Collective appears to be right on top of it.

What it offers is a casual sort of gaming, meaning games are easy to play and don't take up a ton of your time or thought to have fun. The games are also free.

You sign onto a game via flash interface, and wait for others to sign on as well. You then collaboratively play a game together.  

You can also create profiles on the site and participate in extensive forums.  There is a chat feature for members as well. This all happens within your Web browser.

I got my hands on ‘Buggle Stars’, a cute game where you try and collect stars as quickly as possible while attempting to avoid scary obstacles. Admittedly, it was highly addictive. The simplicity of what it has to offer makes the games pretty viral.  Anybody can start playing with just a few clicks.