I know, the title sounds a bit dramatic, but being someone who spent an unhealthy amount of my younger years on this game, I find it to be fitting. This will be a short piece as well, I promise.
It’s been one week since Club Penguin was discontinued in favor of the new Club Penguin Island app. While the app seems to be similar to the massively popular MMO (Yes, Club Penguin was an MMO), nothing can compete with the original game that ultimately got me into gaming… That, and the Sims 3.
I remember way back when I made my original account. I honestly don’t remember the year because it was so long ago, but it was before puffles, so probably 2005 or early 2006. Back then, there was no dojo (there actually was, it was just a secret area), igloos were simple, puffles were yet to be a thing and being a secret agent was actually a secret that you had to find on your own. Oh, and mancala was my favorite minigame. I loved this game so much I even annoyed my parents into getting me a paid membership.
The game began to change quickly, however, with the introduction of puffles ushering in a new era. My first one was blue if I remember correctly. I also remember getting extremely into Card-Jitsu. Like I got way too into it. During the holidays they would always spice it up each year with something new. One of the oddest things was whenever I’d go to the iceberg, there would always be someone trying to tip it over with a jackhammer. Then, either before or after the dojo became a minigame, they introduced Herbert the Bear and I began to fall out of Club Penguin. I wish I had played this game within its final days so I can write an even better piece on this because right now I’m working straight from my old, dusty memory. But once I heard that Disney bought out the rights, I knew it wouldn’t be long until the site died to be replaced with something else.
For a lot of people in my generation, gamers and non-gamers, Club Penguin was a staple to our childhood entertainment and it will be missed, even if 95% of my friends stopped playing it by the time college rolled around. And yes, I know people in college who still logged on every day to play. Anyways, Club Penguin was a fantastic game to usher me into gaming and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Sorry, Sims 3.