The First Newspaper
10 years ago today, we launched Club Penguin to the world. Over the years I have had the amazing opportunity to work with hundreds of crazy talented people and the opportunity to watch a generation of kids become creative young adults. In the past 10 years, around 400 million children have created penguins, made friends and waddled around. I look forward to the next decade.
The original penguin ninja from Penguin Chat 3
I have always had a fascination with ninjas. As a kid I would spend endless hours doodling ninjas and reading my favourite comic GIJOE. Snake Eyes was my favourite.
The penguin ninja first appeared in Penguin Chat 3 early 2005. To unlock the ninja you would have to click the "n" in "penguin" to unlock the ninja. The secret penguin ninjas proved very popular.
I had always planned to release ninjas before pets, pirates, and secret agents in Club Penguin. The original plan was to include the dojo in the Plaza, but the Pet Store and the Pizza Parlor were not ready, so the Dojo was hidden on the map with the iceberg. The mountain became the perfect home for the Dojo and later Card-jitsu. When Club Penguin launched on October 24th, 2005 the Dojo and all the clothing items were ready to be unlocked. (Including the sword) Then something happened.
The players wanted pets for their penguins!
The original Dojo was in the Plaza
THe original dojo was inspired by the Matrix
I immediately stopped working on the ninjas and started working on Puffles. I did not realize at the time how popular the Puffles would become, and how many years until I returned to the ninjas. The new Plaza, Pet Shop, and Puffles launched March 2006.
The original concept animation for the penguin ninja in Club Penguin. The game was inspired by Monty Python's Fish Slap Dance
For years I wanted to add a comedic paper, rock, scissors game to Club Penguin. The original game was going to appear on Rockhopper's ship as a pirate sword fighting game, inspired by the insult sword fighting of Monkey Island. We decided not to launch the this game.
In early 2008 the Club Penguin team was looking for a collectible card game. Disney introduced us to the design team at WizKids Games. I was inspired after our first meeting. I went home and decided to write the design document for Card-Jitsu. I wanted something more than a collectible card game. I wanted a card game that worked with the digital world. Card-Jitsu was born. Card-Jitsu was launched November 17th, 2008 and quickly became the most popular game on Club Penguin with millions of daily players.
Below is the original penguin ninja from Penguin Chat 3. Waddle around, enjoy!
Long before Club Penguin, I was a graphic designer and I loved to create logos. Actually, I still enjoy creating logos. Sometimes I will even create a logo before I design the game.
Way back in early 2000, I had an idea for a massive multiplayer snowball game with penguins. This game was called SnowBlasters. The logo was pretty simple, I wanted the logo to look like it was made out of packed snow.
A massive multiplayer game was a big idea, I needed to start small. So I created a little chat with waddling penguins called Experimental Penguins, later called Penguin Chat.
Penguin Chat continued to grow, and it was time to build something larger. A world to explore, items to collect, and games and activities to play.
The name Penguin Chat was too small. We considered Penguin World and many others. We finally decided to call it Club Penguin.
The word "club" is powerful. Everyone wants to be part of a club. Plus the word "club" encouraged membership. There were many other reasons for the name Club Penguin, but the biggest reason was the domain name was available.
The design for the Club Penguin logo was pretty simple. I took the theme from the SnowBlasters logo and added the penguin colours.
In 2007, Club Penguin joined the Walt Disney Company and we wanted to add the "Disney" logo. The Disney logo is one of the most recognized logos around the world. Adding Disney to the Club Penguin logo would create trust with parents.
We considered a couple options for adding the Disney logo to the Club Penguin logo but the hole between the L and the U was a perfect, for the Y in Disney. The new logo looked perfect. It was almost like Club Penguin was made for Disney. (Another story, another day)
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Another amazing year of imagination! I am looking forward to 2015 — the 10th year of Club Penguin.
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"Small Bursts of Imagination"
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