Virutal penguins, am I right? 
On a wonderful crisp October day in 2005, the virtual world Club Penguin was made available to the general public. The internet now had access to making wondefully cute penguin avatars, and using those wonderfully cute penguin avatars to waddle around, talk to other cute penguins, play fun games and own colourful puffles rainbow style. This would grow to over 200 million penguins by July 2013 and I, admittedly, was one of those penguins. Not that I was particularly great at the social aspect of virtual worlds, or games in general, but that's another story. Before we jump into the history and feel that nostalgic rush, I wanted to boast about my cool, ableit small, Club Penguin collection. I am really not afraid to show it off.
I collected this stuff from caboot sales and eBay, and the games were all preowned. Honestly, I doubt I've spent more than £5 on this collection. I am a big bargian hunter. My partner even says I am too. It just seems that I prioritise my bargian hunting skills exclusively for Club Penguin memorablia.
Brief Club Penguin History
Now, what I find interesting is that Club Peguin seems to have had a handful of predecessors. A lot of experiments were made by Lance Priebe (aka RocketSnail), the first one being (quoted from his website): 'a massive multiplayer snowball game called Snow Blasters… Each player could give their penguin name, chat, and explore a multi-room world. Experimental Penguins later evolved into Penguin Chat'. I have included a video of Experimental Penguins here:Watching this video of his first attempt of creating a multiplayer virtual world is honestly fascinating. Literally called 'Experimental Penguins', you can see the experimentation AND the amazing penguins. I MEAN LOOK AT THIS THIS AREN'T THESE SOME THE BEST VIRTUAL PENGUINS EVER ?? He then became one of the three co-founders of Club Penguin some years later. Being the Founder of Hyper Hippo also, he has recently worked on games such as AdVenture Capitalist and Dungeon Dwarves. Also I would just like to leave a screenshot of this tweet here:
Club Penguin Internet Archive Dive
Clicking on the earliest Internet Archive entry of the Club Penguin website is very fun (at least for me it is). You can see the posts in the News tab leading up to the launch, and you can see the Club Penguin team guiding people on activation, thanking beta testers and asking people to invite their friends. And I think a lot of friends ending up joining the party.
Checking out the site a year later, 2006 around Christmas time, you can see that the website has developed some. It has gained more style and more cute penguin images (what more could you ask for?) BUT what I love the most is that the 'Shop' tab that has now made an appearance. AND Look. At. All. These. Puffle. Keychains. My god. And that black puffle t-shirt. He is JUDGING you.
Clicking on the 'Fun Stuff' tab was also very, well, fun. There are wallpapers, fan art (which is a joy) and fan banners. I also randomly stumbled upon a blog post on the website, showing of the first ever Snow Globe igloo (!!) and I am absolutely living for that.
CLUB PENGUIN BEANIE HAS NOW BEEN ADDED TO WISHLIST.
Of course, there's the whole Disney acquisition thing that we have to keep in mind. The site being aquisited by Disney actually happened a lot earlier than I thought.
I was surprised when clicking on the 2007 version of the website, that the shiny 'Disney.com' in the corner glistened at me, STARING at me and deep into my eyes.
To be fair though you can instantly see the development, but after that the website stays fairly similar for many years.
Art and Music
The art and music of Club Penguin has always been super charming, I think it's one of the reasons why it appealed to so many people and why the game did so well. I did some browsing and found some of the artists that worked on Club Penguin and I thought I'd make a bit of a spotlight showcasing my favourite pieces of concept/artwork from them. Even the (unfortunately) not as successful Club Penguin Island had some awesome designs.
Amanda Kadatz @weremagnus
Amanda Kadatz worked on Club Penguin and Club Penguin Island for almost 7 years! She is currently a full-time game artist/freelance concept artist and illustrator, and is active on Twitter and Tumblr and a few other locations (I've also noticed a handful of fundraising going on!) so they are definitely worth checking out! The work Amanda did on Club Penguin should not be forgotten. I especially love these two designs I've posted below, as the environments of Club Penguin are still some of my favourite virtual world designs to date, so to see some artwork from the era is honestly a treat. Bravo!
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Chris Hendricks @_screenhog Club Penguin Music Playlist
Chris Hendricks is a music composer, animator, programmer, illustrator and game designer and, reading from his website, it seems that these skills have taken him in many different directions, and thank goodness it did! He worked on Club Penguin and has a handful of fairly recent videos on the subject on his YouTube channel, which I am so ready to binge once this article is written (maybe I should've watched them before writing the article, but I'm sure Club Penguin will come up again soon!) In general, the music of Club Penguin is super charming and I always thought that the music for each room, each event and menu suited the game perfectly. I am honestly perfectly happy sitting and listening to the music playlist linked above. It brings me a lot of nostalgic joy. Just click on 'Bean Counters' in the list and you'll feel happy within the first 5 seconds. (Another favourite of mine is 'November in Okinawa')
Oh, also, I really enjoy this Tweet from him where he shared his old ID for Club Penguin studios. It's a piece of history!
Erin Cinkant
Erin worked for over a decade for Disney on various projects, most notably Club Penguin and Club Penguin Island. On artstation, they have shared a lot of the clothing designs that they made and it's so cool to see the artwork behind some of the clothes in the game. I remember that dressing up my penguin to be as fashionable AS POSSIBLE was one of my primary goals. And no wonder, a lot of the clothing designs were great, and any of the artists that came up with those is great in my book. Erin also has posted some other pieces of art from Club Penguin, including some furniture designs. I shared this one in particular because, to be frank, I just really love that computer desk!
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So now, sitting in my bedroom, I think back...
I remember sitting in the corner of the living room, at my Dad's desk on the family computer, and somehow stumbling upon Club Penguin.
I don't remember much more than that, but I remember really wanting those Puffles.
I don't have any big memories of the game (no drama here!), but I was mainly there, a bright eyed kid, going around playing the mini-games, owning puffles, dressing up my penguin, decorating my igloo and having that bit of an escape after a day of school.
Aaaand holding the deep desire to one day be that membership member. You know, one of the cool penguins with
a fully decked out igloo. Don't worry, I did manage to get that groovy dance floor in my igloo eventually.
Club Penguin is always something I would come back to. Even when it shut down and Club Penguin Island was launched, and then that shut down and Rewritten and others were launched, I would still pop back in and have a waddle around and take in all the nostalgia.
I will probably write about Club Penguin again, like I said, it's something I always come back to. I know there are a lot of videos being made on Club Penguin and virtual worlds in general,
and I don't blame anyone for making them. Now is a prime time to be looking back and thinking 'how can we make life this way again?'
I want to be able to come back home and sit at the computer and feed my puffles, goddamit!
Anyway, please tell me your experiences with Club Penguin and if it impacted your life in any way. PS. If you want some really good videos to watch on Club Penguin, I really recommend all of Tamago2474'svideos on the subject!
Thank you for reading!
Written by Iris Lyoko.