Club Penguin

Club Penguin
Developer(s)	The Walt Disney Company and New Horizon Interactive
Publisher(s)	Disney (Originally published by New Horizon Interactive)
Engine	Adobe Flash
Platform(s)	Online
Release	October 24th, 2005
Genre(s)	Online Game
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Club Penguin is an online game developed by New Horizon Interactive which was bought by the Disney company. Using cartoon penguins as avatars, players waddle around, chat, play minigames, and participate in other activities with one another in a snow-covered virtual world. After beta-testing, Club Penguin was made available to the general public on October 24, 2005 and has since expanded into a large online community. Club Penguin is now making a branch in the UK and has job openings there.

Merchandise

An online merchandise shop opened on the Club Penguin website in August 2006, selling stuffed Puffles and T-shirts. Key chains, gift cards, and more shirts were added on November 7, 2006.

Memberships

Subscribed memberships

File:Club Penguin Player Card.png

A Club Penguin Member's Player Card.

Players may become subscribed members and doing so grants them additional in-game benefits. They may buy clothing and furniture, own up to fourteen puffles, enjoy early access to new parts of the game, buy furniture for their puffles, and have access to all puffle breeds. A brand new catalogue only for members contains hairstyles. Members also have access to Members-only parties hosted by Club Penguin. Members may also open their igloo to visits by other players.

Club Penguin recently released game cards available for retail purchase, initially at Target stores in the United States, enabling players to buy their own membership.

Should a subscribed membership lapse or become canceled, that player's members-only clothes will become translucent and an upgraded igloo will be removed. These items will return if the membership is renewed.

Non-memberships

Club Penguin provides a non-membership option. Although such play is free, it does not include all of the benefits of being a member. Non-members may still buy different colors for their penguins, buy player-card backgrounds, travel to any place in the Club Penguin world (except during members-only parties), and play games. Non-members may also receive and use items given out at parties that are held monthly for all players. Non-members are restricted to only two red or blue puffles. If a former member once owned puffles, they may be kept, although no new member-only puffles may be bought. Non-members can not purchase clothes, furniture, wigs, hats, or igloo upgrades. Non-Members also may collect 'pins' to put on their backgrounds, but may not buy them in a catalog.

Environment

File:CP Map.png

The map of Club Penguin

Club Penguin is divided into various rooms and distinct areas. Each player is provided with an igloo for a home. Members have the option of opening their igloo so other penguins can access it via the map. Members may also purchase larger igloos and decorate their igloos with items bought with virtual coins earned by playing mini-games.

Many game locations can be accessed by clicking on the Club Penguin map. Some places are reached by clicking their general area on the map and then walking the penguin to the specific location. Other places are only available for access on certain days or at certain times.

Chat

Club Penguin provides two options for inter-player communication. The Ultimate-Safe Chat mode allows players to select phrases from a list. The other mode, "Open Chat", allows players to enter their own custom messages. Each game server offers a particular type of chat — the majority allowing either chat mode, but some servers allow only the Ultimate-Safe Chat mode.

Punishment

Players who use profanity are often punished by an automatic 24-hour ban, although not all vulgar language results in an immediate ban. After being caught using profane language on a second or third occasion, players may be banned for 72 hours. Players caught hacking Club Penguin are banned for a much longer time period. After 3 to 5 bans, a player is banned indefinitely from the game.

Emoticons

Players can express their feelings with emoticons. There are numerous emoticons, such as a happy face, a sad face, angry, winking, etc. The emoticons appear above the avatar's head in a speech bubble. There are also secret emoticons that may be unlocked by holding down letters on the keyboard (e.g. holding down E and I produces the igloo emoticon). On December 5th 2007, the heart and skull emoticons were removed because players found these offensive, and were replaced with the flower emoticon. On January 9th 2008 the heart emoticon was brought back as a result of popular demand by players. {{Fact|date=April 2008}

Beta Testers

The predecessor to Club Penguin, Experimental Penguins, was a game with gameplay similar to that currently in Club Penguin. Owned by Rocketsnail Games, Experimental Penguins was also the origin of Penguin Chat. Later on, the founders of Club Penguin (Lane Merrifield and two others) created Club Penguin based upon Experimental Penguins and Penguin Chat. During the beta stages of Club Penguin's development, anyone could sign up to be a beta tester. Beta testers received special benefits upon the official release of Club Penguin, such as a month of paid membership, coins, a pink and yellow party hat, and the option to have any letter of their name in uppercase/lowercase letters. This privilege is not extended to regular players, whose names can only contain one capital letter, and only at the beginning of their name. Beta testers are considered to be extremely rare.

Notable Locations in Club Penguin

Places in Club Penguin

Rooms	Games in Rooms	Other Rooms
The Town	Beans (Coffee Shop), Mancala (Book Room) Thin Ice (Nightclub), Astro Barrier (Nightclub)	Coffee Shop (Book Room), Night Club (Lounge), Gift Shop
The Plaza	Puffle Round-Up (Pet Shop), Pizzatron 3000 (Pizza Palour)	Pet Shop, The Stage, Pizza Palour
The Cove	Catchin' Waves	None
Forest	None	None
The Snow Forts	None	Ice Rink
The Dock	Hydro-Hopper	None
The Beach	Treasure Hunt (Captains Quarters), Jet Pack Adventure (Beacon)	Migrator (Ship's Hold, Crow's Nest and Captain's Quarters) Lighthouse (Beacon)
Ski Village	Ice Fishing (Ski Lodge)	Ski Lodge, Winter Sports
Mountain	Sled Racing	None
The Dojo (Hidden)	None	None
Mine (Hidden)	Cart Surfin' (Underground)	Underground, Pool, Boiler Room
Iceberg (Hidden)	Aqua Grabber	None
Rockhopper's ship	Treasure hunt (quarters)	Captain's Quarters, Upper Deck, Crow's Nest

The Stage

The Stage was released in November 2007. In the stage, penguins can act out plays. Subscribed members may buy costumes for the play, an option that non-members do not have. The script for the play is located at the bottom right corner of the screen. When clicked, a list of lines is brought up. Each month, a new play is released. The names of all of the plays are listed below.

Month	Play
November 2007	Space Adventure
December 2007	Twelth Fish
January 2008	Squidzoid vs. Shadow Guy and Gamma Gal
February 2008	Team Blue's Rally Debut
March 2008	Space Adventure (Encore)
April 2008	Quest for the Golden Puffle
May 2008	Twelfth Fish (Encore)

Items

Players may use the virtual coins that they collect from playing mini games to purchase various items from a wide variety of shops. Shop types include clothing, wigs, stage costumes, igloos, furniture, and sports.

Players are allowed to change the color of their penguin at certain shops. Each color bought is saved into the penguin's card, allowing the player to access and change the color of their penguin as often as they wish. Backgrounds are also available for players to purchase. Backgrounds are placed behind the penguin's picture on their penguin card and can also be switched with other backgrounds freely. Every month, up to two to four backgrounds are released. Backgrounds and colors can be bought by non-members.

New pins appear within Club Penguin every two weeks and display in the top left-hand corner of a player's penguin card. Pins are free, but are hidden throughout the game. A special Christmas Tree Pin was made available during late 2006. On January 4, 2008, Club Penguin hid their 50th pin, a snow shovel. Flags are similar to pins; they also appear in the top left-hand corner of a player's lookup card. Flags can only be worn one at a time and can only be bought by Members.

Clothes are worn by penguins, which can either be bought or is given out during parties. Only members can buy clothes, but those given out at parties are wearable by all penguins.

Members' igloos can be upgraded into many different styles. Some igloo styles are themed for parties, such as the Bamboo Hut or Log Cabin. Furniture may be bought for the igloos of subscribed members and can be used to design and decorate an igloo. Flooring for an igloo (introduced January 19, 2007) is also only accessible by subscribed members.

The Penguin Times

Club Penguin has a free virtual weekly newspaper delivered every Thursday. It contains news about Club Penguin and features games, comics, polls, and more. It also has an advice column where a player can write to Aunt Arctic and ask questions about Club Penguin. Any penguin can submit questions, comics, jokes, and riddles to The Penguin Times, which will be chosen and displayed in the next issue. The Boiler Room under the Night Club contains an archive of newspapers from the last six weeks.

Calendar dates

Each newspaper edition includes a list of dates that summarize when the next pin will be hidden, when upcoming parties or Club Penguin events will take place, or any other information on changes to games, rooms, the newspaper, or any other interesting information in general.

Submissions

Players are able to submit jokes, riddles, poems, comics, Fan Art, news articles, tips or secrets, and questions to Aunt Arctic. Each week, a few submissions are picked and displayed. As of the 3rd of April, 2008, Aunt Arctic announced that due to a promotion to Chief Editor, players were now able to submit articles, or tips to the Penguin Times, as well as the usual additions. These submissions now have their own unique place in the newspaper, rather than being in a separate pop-up, as they previously were. This new system also allows penguins to submit questions, which Aunt Arctic replies to every week.

Puffles

Puffles are small, fluffy creatures that players may have as pets. They are available from the Pet Shop in blue, green, pink, black, purple, red, and newly released yellow. Non-members have access to the blue and red puffles only, and may have no more than two; members may adopt up to fourteen puffles. Puffles have health, rest, and energy bar charts to indicate their status. Members whose membership has expired may still keep the puffles, unless they run away.

There are seven official breeds of puffles, each with a different personality.

• Blue Puffles are mild tempered and content. Their favorite toy is a ball. Blue Puffles can be adopted by anyone in Club Penguin. Blue Puffles were the first puffle breed in Club Penguin and are loyal, making them very popular.
• Green Puffles are very energetic and playful. They like to clown around on their unicycles or play with their propeller caps.
• Purple Puffles are lots of fun to have around. They enjoy blowing bubbles and are terrific dancers, but they can be a bit fussy, especially at meal time.
• Red Puffles are adventurous and enthusiastic. They are fearless when attempting daring tricks (except in the survival mode of Catchin' Waves) and spend a lot of their playful energy on a surf board. They shoot themselves out of a cannon or bowl when playing. Rockhopper brought these puffles to Club Penguin on his ship from Rockhopper Island. These, like the Blue Puffles can be adopted by anyone on Club Penguin.
• Pink Puffles are very active and cheery. They love to exercise by jumping rope or playing on their trampolines.
• Black Puffles are known to be mischievous and short-tempered. However, they love to play and make a great pet for anyone who likes a little bit of personality. They sometimes catch on fire and will turn red for a short period of time.
• Yellow Puffles were added November 30, 2007. They love art and are very active. When playing, Yellow Puffles either will choose between going to paint or film a movie. They sculpt food into book room ornaments before eating it, add color to the water when they bath, and dream of being a super hero when sleeping. If a player take Yellow Puffles for a walk and begins dancing, the puffle will sing.

Special penguins on Club Penguin

Rockhopper

Rockhopper is a famous pirate in Club Penguin. He often docks his ship, "Migrator" at the beach. His ship was destroyed when he was visiting Club Penguin after hitting an iceberg. During February-April it was fixed. In late April Rockhopper came back for 10 days. On 28 April 2008, he hid his quarters' key and players who found it could enter the new room. It is also possible to meet this famous pirate.

G (Gary the Gadget Guy)

G is an agent who appears in missions. G is a blue penguin with a lab coat and glasses, and is founder of the Club Penguin HQ. His lab is in the Club Penguin HQ and players may only visit the lab within missions. G has created lots of inventions – including the Prototype Sled, the Spy Phone, AC 1000, and Spy Goggles – which help players complete their missions. Outside of the agency, G invented a machine that helps make pizzas for the pizza parlor, penguin jetpacks, a invention that creates special effects for the stage, an air conditioner to keep the snow that was stored in the lodge attic from melting, a snowball powered clock tower to help penguins tell time, and has invented a submarine to recover the scattered pieces of the Migrator.

Aunt Arctic

Aunt Arctic is a reporter featured in the Penguin Times Newspaper and has given advice ever since the first issue of the Penguin Times was released. Aunt Artic's role is very quite similar to that of a real life advice columnist, giving advice – in this case, regarding game queries and etiquette. Club Penguin players cannot physically meet her (though she is a part of the first Secret Agent Mission). Players can send questions to Aunt Arctic using an in-game form, and she may respond to them. On April 3, 2008, she got promoted to Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper.

Test Servers

On March 11, 2008 Club Penguin released The Club Penguin Improvement Project (CPIP). This project allowed players to be part of the testing of new servers recently put into use in Club Penguin on April 14, 2008. Players had a "clone" of their penguin made, to test these new servers for bugs and glitches. The testing was ended on April 4, 2008.

Coins For Change

Coins For Change was an in-game donation available from December 14 to December 24, 2007, in which players could donate their virtual coins to any of three charitable issues: Kids who are sick, The Environment, and Kids in Developing Countries. Players could donate in increments of 50, 250, or 500 virtual coins. At the end of the campaign, the New Horizon Foundation donated a total of $1 million to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and Free The Children. The proportion of the 1 million dollars that each organization received depended on how many virtual coins were donated by players toward each issue. For example, if most players donated their virtual coins to the environment, the environmental organization got a higher percentage than the others. Issue #115 of The Penguin Times stated that the standings were:

• Kid's Health: 39.4%, $394,000 went to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation
• Environment: 33%, $330,000 went to World Wide Fund for Nature
• Kids in Developing Countries: 27.6%, $276,000 went to Free the Children

A total of over 1 million coins were donated. Penguins who donated received a postcard thanking them for donating. Every donation station had a box of bells next to it. Penguins, both members and non-members could take a bell at no cost.

The Coins for Change program was announced on Disney Channel's Disney 365.

See also

• Disney
• New Horizon Interactive
• Penguin Chat

External links

Club Penguin Sites

• Club Penguin Official Website
• CPIP - Club Penguin Improvement Project

External Sites

• New Horizon Interactive