I began my tour at Hyper Hippo very excited because I was checking out another company that was created by one of the co-founders of Club Penguin. Lisa from Hyper Hippo Productions helped me plan this tour out and I was happy of that. I was given a tour of Hyper Hippo Productions from Chris Hendricks (aka Screenhog) and I would have to say it was enjoyable from start to finish.
The tour started on the top floor which was where most of the employees worked at and included a small kitchen. There were also a couple of personal offices on this floor and an elevator that went down to the first floor. I was able to talk to a couple employees and get a glimpse of what kind of games they were developing. Some of these employees used to work at Disney and some of them were even brand new to the industry which was cool to hear. One of my favorite things coming from this floor had to be the giant Mural on the wall showing off hippos doing a lot of random things. I honestly hope they release it as a wallpaper in the future since its one of the coolest murals I have ever seen.
The second floor of the building had an even larger kitchen area including a gaming room. This floor had even more personal offices including Lance Priebe's (aka Rocketsnail). Lance's office had newspapers displayed on the wall talking about the success of Club Penguin at the time and some merchandise which included a Penguin with a Red Viking Helmet on it and a Snail with a Rocket. Before we left the room Chris got out a piece of paper and drew a quick sketch of a Penguin coming out of a box which is one of my favorite things I got during the trip.
When the tour of the office was over Chris and I started talking to each other about each others lives. I told him on what my future plans in life were going to be and how Club Penguin was such a great thing to my childhood along with millions of other children around the world. When my visit to Hyper Hippo Productions was over I was given a bag filled with some pretty cool items such as a shirt that has Adventure Communist on it and a Mech Mice Book that had Lance and Pascale's name written on the inside cover.
My trip Club Penguin Headquarters would be the very next day and I was very anticipated for this day and I had employees at Hyper Hippo Productions telling me that its a fun experience. I had emailed Anett from the Club Penguin Team asking what time I need to come in on July 12th. Anett told me that the tour would start at 10 a.m. and would last about two hours or longer. I slept in pretty early that night to make sure I would hear the sound of the alarm clock going off even if its the most annoying sound in the world.
The day has finally arrived in which I would be visiting the game studio that has made an impact to my life. It was Wednesday July 12, 2017 and its a day that I will never forget as long as its written down in a notebook. I stood outside the Landmark 4 building and waited about 10 minutes because I got there a bit earlier than I thought. Club Penguin's Lobby is on the fifth floor of the building so I took the elevator and felt my heart pounding fast as this trip would end up being the best decision I've made in my life. The elevator finally reached the fifth floor and I was able to see small lobby with a waterfall with a couple Club Penguin characters behind it along with some merchandise in a display case. Both elevator doors had a couple of Notable Penguins and Puffles that have been in the game for a very long time. A couple minutes went by and I was greeted by Anett and Bonnie who would both give me a tour of the office. This was about to get epic.
The Tour started off with us leaving the Lobby and going around the fifth floor of the building. Throughout the entire tour I got to see even more display cases with CP Merchandise in them including one Puffle Plush that was in a prototype stage but never released to the Public. One room that was a pleasant surprise was the area where they shoot the Island Insider videos. I unfortunately didn't get a picture of the room but I will give you a description about it. The room where they shot Island Insider was set in a room which was about the size of a small closet. It was attached to a board meeting room which was pretty neat. I like to think that it was very difficult to get more than two people in a camera shot since of how small the room was to begin with. After we left that room we continued to move around the building and we saw a little area by a window that was set up like the Coffee Shop. It gave out the Coffee Shop feel that was in the game and even the plants looked like they were directly inspired from the game. Hopefully in the near future I could replicate a room of my house just like this.
We made our way down the hallway and I was able to catch a glimpse of some of the artwork that was made for the game. Every single bulletin board had different types of themes to them such as how the party rooms are first sketched out and put into the game and some of the mini-games that were made for some parties such as the Star Wars Takeover Party back in 2013. There were also sketches showing how different characters were designed for the game and the animations that go with them.
The next room that we went into is probably one of the best designed areas in the studio which is the Movie Theatre. While not exactly a Movie Theatre but rather a conference room where the company showed off their upcoming projects it still looked pretty cool. There was a Projector above and a screen against the wall. One of the things they had in the room besides around 50 or more chairs was a concession stand. Inside the glass was some candy named after some of Club Penguin employees and Mascots from the game. They all sounded very similar to candy bars such as Twix and Hershey which was clever to whoever designed the room. Anett did tell me that the Popcorn that was inside of the other glass case was around 10 years old which is pretty gross but at the same time something I wouldn't change from the room.
Leaving the Movie Theatre room was upsetting since it was such a well designed room, but I knew that the tour had to continue so Bonnie pointed out some other rooms around the floor such as Lance's Basement. Unfortunately I'm unable to remember what the room was meant for but as far as I am concerned I believe the room used to be Lance Priebe's office but I will have to ask him about that.
Across the other side of the Hall there was this picture of Walt Disney with some Penguins during the shooting of Mary Poppins. The Club Penguin team came across this picture when searching through some old archives and have kept this photo on the wall ever since.
There are a ton of different conference rooms at the Club Penguin Headquarters but only a couple of them had a mural painting on the wall. Ice Fishing was one of my favorite mini-games on Club Penguin and I was glad that some talented artists had this made in a conference room. I love the detail that they went through such as showing what happens under water and all of the different species that inhabit the environment.
Club Penguin Headquarters is known to having some pretty incredible rooms and look no further than this Puffle Bean Bag Chair area. This was an area where employees would usually sit around and talk about ideas they had for the game and hopefully not for Pillow fights. I had my picture taken in this room and it was difficult getting out of these bean bag chairs because I kept getting pulled back in. There are only around a hundred of these Bean Bag Chairs that were made for the company. What is interesting is that the White Puffle variants are the smallest of them all which is accurate to how they were in the game.
The tour continued down the fourth floor where most of the employees for the game worked at. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of what the team was doing since there was some top secret stuff on the monitors I couldn't show off. However I will share my experience with the people I have met and what their job at Club Penguin was. The first people I got to meet were some of the Programmers such as Russ that showed off how the Penguin Models were made. There was a Program called Maya that the Club Penguin team uses to create the Penguin Models and the Environment around it. I was shown how they made a Penguin Model move around the island and how combining multiple move sets give off the impression that the Penguin is dancing. After talking to the Programmers about how they created the Penguin Models for the game I was taken across the hall to meet some other Club Penguin Employees.
I was taken down the hallway to meet up with Toby and Dave who both worked as the Music and Sound Designers for the game. Music for the game was mostly used in the Adventures but can also be used when entering a new room on the island. Dave showed off some of the sounds they were working on such as the Yeti roar and rumbling that was put into the game at the 1.6 update as a new Rookie Adventure for members. Alex from the Editorial team was close by and showed me how the scripts for the game were created. What was interesting to me at the time was when Alex told me that Gary, Herbert and Shellbeard were done by a voice actor named Todd Haberkorn. Normally I am used to hearing about actors voicing multiple characters, but the characters that Todd voiced over sounded nothing like each other which made it even cooler.
My next destination on during the tour was to meet up with the Quigley's who were Twin Brothers at the company and have been there for over Ten years. There job was to create the art around the island and to make an environment that the consumers could enjoy. I was probably with these two the longest time at the tour since I had so many questions on how they were inspired to create such amazing environments in Club Penguin and Club Penguin Island. Club Penguin may have been closed down at the time but I was shown a lot of sketches from different party rooms in the past. Things really got interesting as I was shown off some alternate Card Jitsu Dojo Designs that never got released to the Public since they either didn't fit or that they would have lagged the game so much. There were a couple of rooms designed by the Quigley's that were finished but were never pushed out to the public for some unknown reasons. One of these rooms was featured in a Club Penguin Book in the past as a sneak peek but never made it to the game in the end.
After meeting with the Quigley's I was taken to another room where a bunch of Employees were testing out some of the bugs and issues on the game. I met with Ryan who told me that we would be testing out some mini-games and features that would come out within the next update which would be 1.5. This was probably one of my favorite parts of the tour as I got to interact with people who had the same interest as I did. I found Club Penguin Island being a lot more enjoyable when you are around other people rather than far distances since you could communicate face to face. To be honest I would go back to Club Penguin Headquarters over and over again to have this experience as we laughed and got pretty competitive in what we were doing. Russ also came over and asked us if there were still bugs that needed to be squashed before the next update. As far as I'm concerned they accomplished that task in the end. One of the last people I got to meet was Joe who was about to be the new Community Manger at the time. He showed me how the articles on the Club Penguin website were created including the pictures featured. Joe gave me a sneak peek of the International Rock Day article that would be coming out the next day as well as some ideas he had for the future. It will be interesting to see what other bizarre and funny articles will be coming from Joe in the future as the game progresses.
Anett and Bonnie took me down to the third and final floor of Club Penguin Headquarters and was only shown around a couple places since most of it was just additional offices to either Disney or another company below. There was this wall that was filled with sketches the Club Penguin Team had made in the past showing off Gamma Gal and Shadow Guy along with a couple more notable characters to the game. It looks fantastic and would be another piece of art I would like to have in my home.
There were a couple of couches in this area which included this Sketch of Sensei walking over some Penguins as seen in the Club Penguin Short Never Wake a Sleeping Sensei. I forgot to ask Anett if this was drawn like this or on a piece of paper and then enlarged but I guess that is a mystery for now.
This was the gaming room and it was the final room of the tour. Inside of here there was a couple of tabletop games that employees could play on and a couple of gaming systems which I was told they didn't play as much at the time.
When we left the gaming room we went on the elevator to go to the bottom floor and say goodbye to each other. Anett and Bonnie as well as the team at Club Penguin were happy that I made this journey to come up and visit the company as there are only so many individuals that get the chance to do this. At the beginning of the tour I was given a gift bag that contained a notepad that teaches me how to draw Penguins and a couple of other items that will go great into my collection.
While the tour was over and I had accomplished something I've been wanting to do for years I knew that the fun will never end. Right after leaving Club Penguin Headquarters I went up to Knox Mountain Park which gives you a pretty good view of Kelowna. When I took a glimpse of the amazing view before me I asked myself if this Journey was worth the wait. I've been looking forward for this trip over the course of many years and here I was overlooking the city where part of my childhood was created. This was a trip I planned out since February 2017 and I am glad that I not only paid for the whole trip but I also traveled up there alone. Was this a sign that I was growing up or is it just for the sake of visiting my childhood? Will I ever go back to Kelowna in the future even if the game is there or not? How will this game affect me and others who have been apart of the game for countless amounts of years? I guess I won't be able to answer these questions as of now but maybe in the future as life goes on.
Well there it is everybody, this is probably the longest blog post on this website. I am somewhat glad that I finally went to publish this but I am also a bit upset that it took so long to put up. To be honest I hope I get the chance to go back up to Kelowna because it was one of the best Vacations I have ever taken. This game means a lot to me and I am glad to have done something that went through my mind for years. I hope that the Club Penguin Community will continue to grow and that Club Penguin Island will be successful for years to come. Anyways let me know what you guys thought of this ridiculously long blog post down below and more blog posts will be coming soon.
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