Before Club Penguin or Penguin Chat, I had this ambitious idea of creating a massively multiplayer online snowball game way back in July 2000.

That game? SnowBlasters.

I wanted it to be a free, massive, Advance Wars-esque, multiplayer snowball war game with thousands of concurrent players on-screen.

Here’s the first logo design for Snow Blasters…. look familiar?

SnowBlasters was built in Flash 4. It was a web-based game where players could have tactical snowball fights. I wanted players to build forts using blocks that they could stack up to make their forts higher and higher. That’s why there were Snow Forts in Club Penguin.

I built up the SnowBlasters idea and worked on it during my free time. This was the first game concept I ever built. Here are some sneak peeks from my notebook.

SnowBlasters Sketches

SnowBlasters was under development way back in 2000. I also had a website set up for it. I did finish creating the initial full list of the game’s features as well as the user account features.

Despite all these ideas and design creation, Snow Blasters was never released to the public. Instead, the features of SnowBlasters evolved into Experimental Penguins and Penguin Chat.

Even though much of SnowBlasters ended up in the Penguin Chats, many of the items and ideas didn’t. For example, while we added a polar bear to Club Penguin, beavers didn’t make the cut. Now I can incorporate some of these ideas into my new world, Box Critters.

Here is a list of items that I was planning for SnowBlasters:

• Thermos of hot chocolate - Heals 10 point damage. Coffee can be given to the team or poured onto the ground to reveal the opponent.

• Snowshoes (1 spot) - Characters can move faster. +1 to speed.

• Tuque (1 spot) - This is an extra armor. Add +10 to the hit points

• Binoculars (1 spot) - This will allow you to see what happens. One screen distance away.

• Hot water bottle (1 spot) - Add +10 points to hit points. But slows the player down. -1 to speed.

• Compass (1 spot) - This allows you to determine your location. Very important for launching large catapults.

• Plush penguin (1 spot) - This toy can be used to distract opponents and will just sit there. Has your name.

• Saw (1 spot) - The saw is used to cut blocks of ice and build walls. Great for defense.

• Ice pick - This item is added to the catapult queue.

• Radio (2 spots) - Talk to other members that have a walkie talkie. Critical for strides with catapults. Distance shots. If you have the compass you can press send coordinates.

• Electric socks (1 spot) - Increase your hit points by 10 points.

• Shovel (1 spot) - This will allow your character to hide beneath the snow. The longer you are under the snow, you can die because you get cold.

• Pickaxe (1 spot) - This will allow your character to break through walls. Combined with rope, players can climb walls and cliffs.

• Rope (1 spot) - Combined with the pickaxe, players can climb walls and cliffs.