Club Penguin

Club Penguin, commonly abbreviated as CP, is a MMORPG designed for children and teenagers 6 to 14 (but it's open for all ages) that was developed by New Horizon Interactive. Using cartoon penguin avatars, players can chat, play mini games, and participate in other activities with one another in a snow-covered virtual world. Club Penguin was first made available to the public on October 24, 2005 on 12:00 PM (Penguin Standard Time) and has since then expanded into a large online community. Club Penguin shares similarities with other popular browser-based online environments such as RuneScape and Habbo Hotel. Though open to everyone, Club Penguin is primarily designed for children aged six to fourteen, and has been qualified for the Better Business Bureau - Kid's Privacy Seal of Approval. Club Penguin was also awarded the "Editor's Choice" award from Children's Technology Review Magazine.

Though a large amount of the game can be played for free, some of features are not available unless a membership is purchased. These features include: upgrading and buying things for your personal igloo, buying clothes, hats,accessories for your penguin and wigs.



Technical
Internally, Club Penguin is powered by LAMP servers for the websites. SmartFox servers are used in the game.

On the administrative side, Plesk, ClickZ, WinHTTrack, The Web Developer toolbar (for Firefox), and Firebug are used.

Toys
Club Penguin has sold many merchandise such as stuffed plush penguins and puffles, Mix and Match figures (in which head, body, some items, and lower parts of a penguin come off to mix with another set or another penguin in the same set) and Card-Jitsu Cards; including Card-Jitsu Fire and Water cards.

These toys can be bought at many stores worldwide, but are most notably found at Toys 'R' Us.

Books
Ten books, such as "The Ultimate Official Club Penguin Guide Volume 1","The Official Stage Playbook","Secret Agent Handbook", "Stowaway! Adventures at Sea" and "Waddle Lot of Laughs",The Great Puffle Switch,Dancing with Cadence,Shadow Guy and Gamma Gal:Heroes Unite,and Stuck on Puffles Are all created by the Snowball Press also known as Club Penguin Headquarters.

Games
Club Penguin has 3 games available in stores - 2 on Nintendo DS and 1 on Nintendo Wii. These games are as follows:


 * Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force for DS,
 * Club Penguin: Herberts Revenge also for DS,
 * Club Penguin: Game Day for Wii.

Spin-off video games
Several video games based on Club Penguin have been published:


 * Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force (Nintendo DS)
 * Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force: Herbert's Revenge (Nintendo DS)
 * Club Penguin: Game Day! (Nintendo Wii)

Sites supporting Club Penguin
Club Penguin can be played via six different websites:


 * ClubPenguin.com
 * Miniclip.com
 * Disney.com
 * WildTangent Orb
 * 

Trivia

 * Club Penguin's Business Number is 1-888-861-4111. Only call if you have any serious questions or if you want to unban your forever banned penguin (lots of users have successfully accomplished this before).
 * This Shot clearly shows a remark about 'iPhone Phase 1.a', and Underneath it says 'Mobile Sever'. This may mean that CP might be released for the iPhone. See: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ob8lDy6Ekbc/TRgPexn0jjI/AAAAAAAAEPU/S5ernRTpa0M/s1600/penguin-schedule.jpg
 * Club Penguin originally came out in 2005.
 * Club Penguin was created in 2001,but since the team was still working on the virtual world,it came out in 2005.

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Sources and References
DISNEY.COM