Club Penguin

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Club Penguin

Developer(s)	New Horizon Interactive
Publisher(s)	New Horizon Interactive
Designer(s)	New Horizon Interactive
Engine	Adobe Flash
Release date(s)	October 24, 2005
Genre(s)	MMORPG
Mode(s)	Multiplayer
Platform(s)	OS Independent (Web Based Flash) (Flash 7 Required)
Media	Web interface
Input	Keyboard, Mouse

Club Penguin is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game for children developed by New Horizon Interactive. Using cartoon penguin avatars, players can converse, play minigames, and participate in other activities with one another in a snow-covered virtual world.^[1] Club Penguin was first made available to the public on October 24, 2005^[2], and has since expanded into a large online community.

Club Penguin shares similarities with other popular online environments like Habbo Hotel and RuneScape. Club Penguin is primarily designed for children age eight to fourteen,^[3] and has been qualified for the Better Business Bureau - Kid’s Privacy Seal of Approval. ^[4] Club Penguin was also awarded the "Editors Choice" award from Children's Technology Review Magazine.^[5]

The Shop opened on the Club Penguin website in August 2006, selling stuffed puffles and T-shirts. Keychains, gift cards, and more shirts were added on November 29, 2006.

Though the game can be played for free, many of the features are not available unless a subscription is purchased.^[6] The monthly subscription is $5.95.

1 Club Penguin Info
2 Club Penguin Parties
3 Moderators
4 Secret agents
5 Items
6 Chat
7 Puffles
8 Games
- 8.1 Coin Pay Per Game
- 8.2 Other multiplayer games
9 Membership
- 9.1 Paid subscription
- 9.2 Non-membership
10 References
11 External Links

[edit] Club Penguin Info

A screenshot from Club Penguin's Town

To move about Club Penguin, players click where they want to go. To enter a building, one clicks on the door.

Each player is provided with an igloo for a home. Members have the option of opening their igloo so other players can access it via the map. Members may also decorate their igloos with items bought with money earned by playing minigames. They can also buy clothes if they wish.

There are many places in Club Penguin. They include: Mountain, Ski Village, Sports Shop, Ski Lodge, Lodge Attic, Town, Coffee Shop, Book Room, Dance Club, Dance Lounge, Gift Shop, Cave, Boiler Room, Mine, Plaza, Pizza Shop, Pet Shop, Ice Rink, Snow Forts, Beach, Dock, Mine Shack, Lighthouse, Pirate Ship (only accessable when Rockhopper comes to Club Penguin), Dojo, Iceberg, The Beacon and Headquarters (HQ). These areas are not all on the map but are still accessible to players. One exception is the Headquarters, which is both hidden and inaccessible to players who are not Secret Agents.

[edit] Club Penguin Parties

Every month, there is a party on Club Penguin. The party may be for a holiday such as Valentine's Day, Christmas or Easter, or it may be random. Random parties occur when no major holiday is celebrated in a particular month. The most notable parties include the Beta Test Party, the Pizza Party, the Summer Party, and the upcoming Christmas Party that is going to take place on the 22nd of December.

[edit] Moderators

All Club Penguin areas are monitored by Moderators who ensure players are not using vulgar or bad language. Players' ideas for adding to the game and making it more fun are accepted by Moderators, who also help keep hackers from interfering with the game or cheating. When moderators are absent, secret agents are there to help.

[edit] Secret agents

A screenshot from the Secret Agent HQ

Secret Agent status is available to all players, whether members or not, who have played for at least 30 days. These "agents" are encouraged to inform players of upcoming events and guide new members around the game. They are also asked to help keep Club Penguin safe and report anyone who is being disruptive or using offensive language; agents are not, however, official moderators.^[7] Secret agents are able to perform randomly occurring "Top Secret Missions." Successful completion of such missions yields items for the player card inventory. In addition to eligibility for Top Secret Missions, agents have "spy phones" which permit travel to various Club Penguin locations, some of which are not available on the map. A player banned twice in the same year is not eligible to become a Secret Agent. Secret Agents can enter the HQ and have access to exclusive information and items including a manual/catalog titled The F.I.S.H (Factual Information Spy Handbook). Players become agents by clicking a symbol in the top right corner of the page and answering accurately a series of Club Penguin-related questions. Secret agent status and a spy phone are then granted upon the next login.

Missions

Two current missions, which require secret agents to use their imagination and logic, include:

'Case of the Missing Puffles', wherein a penguin named Aunt Arctic has lost her Green and Purple puffles and the player must get them back.

'G's Secret Mission', in which agent 'G' gives the player a new sled which must be tested.

Other missions have yet to be announced.

[edit] Items

There are 13 colors in Club Penguin, from which players can choose and use as many as they want. They are: Light Green, Dark Green, Orange, Peach, Red, Light Blue, Dark Blue, Brown, Black, Pink, Yellow, Purple, New colors are generally introduced at members-only parties. The Lime Green Color has yet to appear on the Club Penguin sign-up page.

Many backgrounds are available; they change every month and can be viewed when anyone clicks on a player's penguin. Backgrounds can be bought by non-members.

Pins are in the left-hand corner of a player's lookup and are free for anyone, but disappear every second week.

Flags are similar to pins though are only available to members; they appear in the left-hand corner of a player's lookup.

Clothes are for members only, except for twenty-or-so items that were given out for free at parties and on the pirate ship.

Furniture is for members only and can be used to design a player's igloo.

[edit] Chat

Club Penguin provides two options for inter-player communication. Ultimate Safe Chat allows players to select phrases from a list, similar to old text-adventure games. With Standard Chat, players may type any message, subject to censorship by a word filter. ^[8] Each game instance (computer server) offers a particular type of chat, with about a 1:11 ratio of Ultimate Safe Chat to Standard Safe Chat availability.

[edit] Puffles

Puffles are small balls of fluff which each player may have as pets; they're available from the Pet Shop in blue, purple, green, pink, black or red (the most recent color). Non-members have access to either one blue and/or red puffle, two red or two blue; members may adopt up to 12 puffles. When a player logs out, each puffle saves in its current position and is exactly the same upon the next login. Health, Rest and Energy levels must be full for a puffle to take part in actions.

Care and Feeding

Puffles need to be fed with pet food which costs 10 coins. Snacks (cookies and gum) can also be bought for 5 coins each. If not fed, puffles won't sleep, take a bath, or play, and will refuse to be walked. Continually neglected puffles will run away. Puffles expect to be fed after a walk and will otherwise get upset. A recent change in Club Penguin is that each puffle will react differently to water; some will take a short bath.

Personalities

There are six different types of puffles, each with a different personality.

Blue Puffles are mild tempered and content. Their favorite toy is a ball. Blue Puffles are special because anyone in Club Penguin can adopt them.
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 a little mischievous and off-tempered. However, they love to play and make a great pet for anyone who likes a little bit more personality. Black puffles turn into a ball of fire when fed, but it doesn't hurt them.
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 mealtime.
Red Puffles are adventurous and enthusiastic. Their favorite toys are bowling pins and a cannon. Red Puffles originally came from Rockhopper's island. Like blue puffles they also can be adopted by anyone on Club Penguin.

Walks

A relatively new feature is walking one's puffle. Players may walk around Club Penguin with their puffles, who will also do a small dance when their player dances. Walking a puffle may be done by going to one's igloo, clicking on the puffle's player card then clicking on the leash. Puffles may be returned to the player's igloo home, where they reside when not being walked.

Bathing

On the puffle's playing card, players can buy a bath (for five coins) which is taken immediately. Bathing raises most of a puffle's stats.

[edit] Games

Various games are available for play within Club Penguin. Single-player games, which generally earn the player more coins, include Cart Surfer, Ice Fishing, Astro Barrier, Bean Counters, Puffle RoundUp, Jet Pack Adventure (introduced on November 6, 2006), and Ballistic Biscuit. Multi-player games in Club Penguin include Find Four, Mancala, and Sledding, which reward players with up to roughly 20 coins per game. In most single-player games, one tenth of the final score is the number of penguin coins received. In Jet Pack Adventure, the amount of coins the player gets equals to the amount of coins collected during the game plus the amount of remaining fuel as an additional coin reward; players may collect up to 800 coins per game. These coins can be used later to buy puffles, clothes, penguin colors, etc. Games are located throughout the Club Penguin World. The game Cart Surfer is slightly hidden on the mini-map, and can be accessed by clicking on the snow directly above the Plaza and right of the Snow Forts. Players may collect up to 600 coins per game, which takes about two minutes, making Cart Surfer one the best sources of coins.

[edit] Coin Pay Per Game

Astro Barrier, Ballistic Biscuit, Bean Counter, and Cart Surfer all pay 1/10th of the final score, which means that if one ends up with a final score of 2000, he or she will receive 200 coins. Ice Fishing pays 2 coins per fish. Multi-player game winnings are as follows:

Sled Racing

1st Place: 20 coins
2nd Place: 10 coins
3rd Place: 5 coins
4th Place: 5 coins

Find Four

Winner: 10 coins
Loser: 5 coins

Mancala

The player gets the same amount of coins as the stones he/she captured.

[edit] Other multiplayer games

Though most games do, some do not earn the player coins. They include:

Ice Hockey (located in the ice rink)
Snowball Fights (located in the snow forts)

[edit] Membership

[edit] Paid subscription

Players who become members (by paying $5.95 per month, $29.95 for six months, or $57.95 USD for a year) get many benefits. They may buy anything from shops, own multiple puffles, enjoy early access to new parts of the game, buy furniture for their puffles, and have access to all puffle breeds. Members also have access to Members only Parties hosted by Club Penguin.

[edit] Non-membership

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 colors (and player-card backgrounds), and can go anywhere. Non-members may also receive and use items given out at parties that are sometimes thrown for all players. Non-members may also buy one red puffle and one blue puffle.