What is Club Penguin?
Club penguin was an mmo aimed at kids aged from 7 to 12 years old developed by New Horizon Interactive and later bought by Disney. In this snowy virtual world you could play a wide variety of games, dress your penguin up, decorate your own igloo, collect stamps and chat with other players among other things.
Why is Club Penguin so important to me?
This game supported me throughout the entirety of my childhood, i remember being about six years old, watching my brother waddle around on the family computer, me waiting impatiently beside him for my turn to play, i remember all the parties i enjoyed so much, i remember how happy i was when i met Rockhopper for the first time, i remember how much joy it brought me and my brother when my dad brought us little penguin figurines from Chile when he got back from a business trip.
I associate Club Penguin with the best memories i have from my childhood, it helped bring me and my brother together and it filled my days with joy and entertainment, i can't explain how heartbroken i was when the last party was announced, i remember crying a lot and even e-mailing Disney asking for a reason (which they did not give me btw), i think that's when i realized just how quickly things can dissappear, and just how nostalgic i am for every little thing in my life, which is both a curse and a blessing, i do recall spending club penguin's last days doing everything around the island, talking to people, watching my brother get to the black belt in only a few weeks, i really made sure i got the best out of those days and even though i miss the game dearly, i know i enjoyed every second i spent playing.
The Characters
Club Penguin had many recurring characters, but i wanted to talk about my faves <3
Dot, The Disguise Gal
Dot, also known as Dot the design gal by the public and Dot the disguise gal in the EPF HAS TO BE MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER EVEEERRRR, she's a fashion designer for the island, usually participating in parties like the fashion festival (2015), she's the most girly out of all the other characters, she's so fucking cool, not only does she design garments in her day job but her task at the EPF is to infiltrate and get info by dressing up in her handmade disguises, even now at 17 years old i can't help but love her, i even had my 10th b-day party themed around her.
Gary, The Gadget Guy
Gary is the island's inventor and former owner of the sports shop (which previously was the gift shop). I think he's in every PSA mission there is, he's very involved in the EPF, usually making tech for the agents and helping with plans, not really a man of action. He's the cutest, i spent so many hours on those missions that i got attached to him and his broken glasses, what can i say, i love me a nerd.
Cadence
Cadence is the local DJ, she has some bangers like The Party Starts Now, Ghosts Just Wanna Dance and Cool in the Cold, these songs also feature The Penguin Band which have the best fucking song in the franchise, Anchors, Aweigh!, truly a musical masterpiece, only bad thing is that the MV is too short (╥_╥)
Stompin' Bob
He's a member of The Penguin Band, he plays a red bass and has some cool accesories, if i'm being completely honest i only put him here because i remember having a huuuge crush on him when i was a kid, i don't blame me tbh, he's still kinda hot, too bad his name is Bob (-_-)
Aunt Artic
The island's journalist, she's a nice lady who's the editor in chief of the local newpaper and IS ALSO THE FUCKING DIRECTOR OF THE EPF???¿¿?? HOW COOL IS THAT??? (°ロ°) ! she's such a queen, when they revealed her identity in the end of Operation Blackout party (best party btw) MY JAW WAS ON THE FLOOOOOOOOR, so cool that they made a woman the director of the EPF considering everyone just assumed it was a man, that's feminism right there baby.
Rockhopper
Captain Rockhopper is a penguin pirate who comes to the island on special parties on his ship, i remember how you could see him out on the sea with the telescope on top of the lighthouse whenever he was close to the coast, it was very exciting. He's also the first penguin i met in-game! i was 8 years old aproximately and had to stay up late since he showed up in an english-speaking server, it was a very special moment for me and i'll remember it for a long time <3
Guy, The Jet Pack Guy
He's an elemental member of the EPF, appearing lots of times on the missions and also parties that have to do with the agency. I used to have a crush on this guy too, fun fact that i just learned while searching for a good pic of him: his actual name is Guy... interesting. Anyway, i remember having one of those shiny cards of him in my collection and bragging about it to my brother lolz, i'll show it in a bit.
Sensei
your typical cliche, he's simply an old (probably) chinese penguin who's a master in this martial art called Card-Jitsu, basically a card game based on the 3 elements water, fire and snow..? i guess it makes sense because they are penguins... oh, well, it's still a very cute and fun game to play wether it be online or irl, i have a bunch of cards, as soon as i get a job i'll try to find and buy a couple more for my collection, i have a binder which i want to fill up with them, i just need a little more money ( ; ω ; )
Parties
A very important part of the game was the parties, every month or so a different party would be celebrated by the whole island, with it usually came special items, missions and maybe even a little storyline to follow as you played. There are a few of my faves which i'd like to talk about...
The yearly holiday parties may just be one of the best memories that i have of christmas time, my family has always been a very big fan of christmas even though we're not really religious, the Holiday party meant i was finally on summer vacation and Santa was coming soon, the music for this parties was always so sweet, lots of classics with little twists and cuter sounds filled the recently decorated rooms, i'd redecorate my igloo with the new stuff in the catalogue, my christmas spirit was unstoppable.
The best part about this party was Coins for Change, a yearly charity to which penguins could donate the coins they'd earned in-game to a charity of their liking and the Club Penguin team would donate real-life money to the organizations. When i was a kid, i'd donate every coin i had to Coins for Change, hoping i could make a difference in the only way i could. I feel like it's such an important thing to teach children and it's so beautiful to see how a community of little kids can be so selfless, i'm also amazed with the team's kindness, kudos to all of them.
The Halloween party is iconic, everything was so spooky and as someone whose country doesn't celebrate Halloween, it was so exciting to get to be a part of something that seemed so foreign to me at that time. my favourite part of these parties was to roleplay trick or treating at the snow fort when they started decorating it like a neighbourhood, i dressed my penguin up in a cute costume and trick or treated the night away.
...oh, Operation Blackout? yeah... it's only THE BEST PARTY CLUB PENGUIN HAS EVER MADE. It is full of lore and mistery and what many consider to be the last party in which club penguin felt like club penguin? i don't personally have an opinion on this since i was 6 years old when this party was going on, but whatever.
Operation Blackout was celebrated from november to december of 2012, it actually originated from a misunderstanding! in 2010, a staff's member pic of a whiteboard with future plans for the game was leaked, in this picture we can see how right under June, staff wrote "Blackout' 2 weeks" fans started to theorize about what this might mean, although in reality it was a two week break for the team's programmers.
After noticing how invested and curious the community seemed to be about this blackout, they decided to prank the community by showing a little fake snippet on a behind the scenes video of club penguin's headquarters in Canada, this lead to more speculation about the subject, although the team had nothing planned for this concept yet.
After seeing just how excited players were aboyt this blackout mistery, the team decided to make it a reality. The party started november 8, 2012, when Club Penguin Times announced that Gary was missing, he had been kidnapped by Herbert who had the goal of taking over the club penguin island by using his solar laser to steal the sunlight from the penguins and use it to keep only himself warm an destroy the EPF, slowly he started to kidnap every EPF agent. The Director, whose identity was still unknown at that time, sent every agent to stop Herbert's plans and while the island was slowly freezing (more than it already was lol) penguins got into Herbert's fortress and put a stop to his plan.
Finally, the agents were freed, the sun came back and The Director revealed their secret identity to be Aunt Artic, who congratulated the player for their hard work.
Card-Jitsu
Card-Jitsu is a martial art brought to the club penguin island by Sensei a long time ago, Sensei built the dojo himself to teach penguins to master the elements and respect them but after a while he left to explore the wilderness and train harder. In november 3, 2008, the dojo was hit by lightning, encouraging penguins to dig it out in the Dig Out the Dojo party where the Dojo was dug out of the snow and repaired, after that, on november 17, training began.
Sensei agreed to start training penguins again as a thanks for their hard work in digging out and repairing the Dojo, after it was repaired Sensei revealed his identity, which was a secret at the time, and threw a little party on the Dojo which had a special gong show every five minutes.
I personally love Card-jitsu, playing it online or irl, it's very easy to understand and i love anything related to the elements, it's sucha cute concept. Anyways, I was a ninja in the og game but now that i've been switching between private servers and haven't had enough free time to spend playing i'm currently a purple belt! working on the brown one rn
EPF
EPF, which stands for Elite Penguin Force, is a secret organization in charge of keeping the island safe which's headquarters are located underneath the Everyday Phoning Facility located in the Ski Village. The EPF is a very integral part of club penguin's gameplay and not just anyone can join, you had to be invited by another player to join it and do a little puzzle in order to get in, as soon as you got in, you got your own little secret spy phone which could be used for teleporting and stuff
The EPF actually replaced the PSA, the Penguin Secret Agency, after it was destroyed by Herbert as seen in the last PSA mission "The Veggie Villain", where he puts a comically amount of corn inside the PSA's headquarters in order to heat it enough to make it popcorn, filling the headquarter's with it.
speaking of PSA! i have to say that when these missions came back as EPF training missions, i couldn't be happier, they have these cozy, nostalgic feeling to them that i absolutely adore, i'd missed them dearly and re-played them countless times every time i could, in fact, i'm gonna go play them right after finishing this lol.
Me
This is my penguin at the moment! i've been playing on New Club Penguin for awhile now, and although i'm not as cool as i was in the og game, i'm online from time to time, if anyone wants to befriend me my username's masameow :D
Although i'm a pretty girly girl i decided for my penguin to have more of a masculine style, i'm working with what i got tbh, i cannot fin a wig that looks nice and fits the vibe i'm going for, it kinda looks like Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker for some reason but just ignore it for me, yeah?
Now it's time for my humble collection!! just a note: the princess penguin used to have a hat which disappeared last year, i'm blaming my cats cuz i have no idea where that little thing went, i'm still so upset about losing it (ノ_<。) ..oh well, these things happen.
And here are my Card-Jitsu cards!!
Well, that's all i wanted to share i think, thank you so much for reading all my rambling!
bonus: my cat, Oliver, helping out with the photoshoot ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡
