Guy Ben-Artz and his sister, Galia, have a goal: To boldly go where pretty much everyone has gone before.

However, they want to break down a lot of walls along the way.

The Palo Alto, Calif., pair are the brains behind Mytopia, a new social networking and casual gaming platform that launched this week in public beta with one thing in mind for its clients: absolute and complete accessibility to its games, no matter where you are online.

Mytopia offers the same multiplayer fare as other online game sites — checkers, chess, poker, sudoku, things like that — and it has the kind of chat tool that’s typical among social networking sites.

However, Mytopia is trying to make a name for itself not so much by offering games, but by offering those games regardless of the Web platform its players use. The Ben-Artzes insist Mytopia is the only site of its kind that works in real time across a variety of platforms, including Bebo, Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo Widgets and iGoogle Gadgets.

“Games have been connecting people across the world for centuries, but until now people who play games on the Web have been sandboxed into their respective networks,” Guy Ben-Artz said.

So, anyone who signs up with Mytopia can play whenever and wherever, no matter the network. And players are able to import their profiles from other platforms to Mytopia, and vice versa.

All Mytopia’s games — there are eight so far — are Flash based and play in a Web browser, whether it’s on a PC or Mac, or in widget form. The cartoony home page highlights seven portals, six of which are venues for board games, card games or video poker. A “Town Hall” portal houses message boards and lists who’s online, and a store lets players trade game points for prizes and gift certificates to online retailers.

Later, when the site goes international, the interface will adapt to reflect players’ home nation or region, Ben-Artz says.

Players start out at Mytopia by creating an avatar for themselves at the site or importing one made elsewhere. In time, Ben-Artz says, Mytopians also will be able to join games by logging through their profiles from other social networking sites.

And the more network barriers that fall, the more people will come together, and not just for gaming.

“Mytopia unleashes the true social potential of games by creating a seamless gaming community that everyone can enjoy,” Ben-Artz said.