Club Penguin’s Past Employees: Their Current Adventures

Club Penguin will turn 10 years old in just a few months. During the decade, passionate people at the offices of Disney Club Penguin worldwide have come together and built the game with their creative minds and ingenuity. However, over the years, some employees have left Club Penguin to start their own extraordinary, fantastic adventures and to contribute to the world with innovative projects. I’d like to collect them together in one post to share with you all. 🙂

Lane Merrifield

Penguin Name: Billybob

Left Club Penguin: 2013

What’s he doing now? Making the world a better place by improving education. He works together with fellow employees in a business he created: FreshGrade. FreshGrade’s goals are bettering the performance of students as well as the communication between parents and teachers. They have made handy mobile apps that have been featured in app stores! Lane is currently the CEO.

Check out FreshGrade!

Lance Priebe

Penguin Name: Rsnail

Left Club Penguin: 2010

What’s he doing now? Lots of things.  He is involved in many exciting projects! 15 years after the startup of penguins, he still is very, very active in creating games and web projects. First, he is working on a new virtual world. Secondly, Lance is in the process of making Screenzilla, a “top secret animation project” quoted from the YouTube channel of this project. He is the CEO of Hyper Hippo Productions, a game company located in Kelowna, BC, Canada, devoted to making unique games for all audiences! He is working with Oktobor Animation to create a cartoon series based on the game, Mech Mice. Lance is slowly but certainly developing all of these projects.

Watch a short video of the Mech Mice animated series!

Chris Hendricks

Penguin Name: Screenhog

Left Club Penguin: 2010

What’s he doing now? Programming games, composing magnificent music, and drawing artworks. He’s a multi-talented guy who is working at Hyper Hippo Productions alongside Lance/Rocketsnail and other former Club Penguin employees. They have started at Club Penguin and taken that experience to create something new, something extraordinary.

He has participated in the development of many of Hyper Hippo’s games. Try some out!

Chris Gliddon

Penguin Name: Polo Field

Left Club Penguin: 2015

What’s he doing now? It all started with a geeky podcast called Tiger/Wolf Cast. He and his friend, Nate Lige, made a series of podcasts comparing one thing and another. After some time doing that, they put their main focus more on what their fans (like me!!) wanted to see from them: game playing under their new name, Tiger/Wolf Games. Chris played several games for us to watch (and laugh). Now that they have played games, the two are in the process of creating their OWN game! It’s currently deemed as “the Tiger/Wolf World” since its stages are very early right now.

Watch Chris play… and rage… to Geometry Dash. It’s hilarious if you ask me:

 

Johnny Jansen

Penguin Name: Businesmoose

Left Club Penguin: 2013

What’s he doing now? Now a Vancouver resident, he is a freelance video producer. Johnny can make music videos, advertisements, and much, much more! In his spare times, he goes on adventures with his wife and best friend forever, Carly Walde, in a funny and fascinating YouTube series called “Where’s Walde?” posted on their YT channel, Cool Tree Creative. He’s also a drummer in a cool band named Battle Stereo.

 Watch the first episode of “Where’s Walde?”!

And listen to the unique music of Battle Stereo!

Cody Vigue

Penguin Name: Unknown (and no, his penguin name is NOT “Unknown”)

Left Club Penguin: Probably 2012 or 2013

What’s he doing now? He has his hands full.  You know why? He is the proud creator of one of the world’s most popular games, AdVenture Capitalist, a capitalism simulator game (let me warn you, it’s addicting). He’s not the main programmer at the company he works at, Hyper Hippo, but he taught himself to code his simulator game. Cody the coder. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. 😛 Oops, where was I? Oh yeah. His specialties are writing and designing games. Did you know he was one of the people who worked on the Mech Mice game? If you would like to know more about Cody’s interesting position in Club Penguin, read this blog post in which I interview him.

Watch the official trailer for AdVenture Capitalist:

There are lots of other former Club Penguin employees that I haven’t mentioned who left CP as their own decision to begin something new. Something that would improve the world. Or something to provide people with fun entertainment. Working and being a part of the team at Club Penguin influenced them to do all these amazing things. It’s sad when they leave Club Penguin but seeing and experiencing their own awesome creations fills your heart with optimism and joy. 🙂

*psst* Hey! Before you finish this post, take a look at this thingy here. Please. (Just a day in the life of Hyper Hippo employees, Chris Hendricks and Cody Vigue.)

…don’t blame me if you keep laughing for the next ten minutes.

A Huge Catalog Calls for Huge Results

By now, I am pretty sure you know about the biggest Penguin Style catalog ever that was released today, the 5th of August. There are endless pages. I was not surprised by the amount of items. Nope. I was VERY OVERWHELMED! If you haven’t seen it yet, what are you waiting for?! Get on Club Penguin and check out the humongous catalog! I’ll try to keep this post as short as possible so you can spend your time with the catalog.

The outcomes of this catalog are indeed substantial. First of all, lots and lots of people logged on to see it. Just recently, I was online and saw in my Friends List that up to 11 friends were online at the same time! I don’t recall such an event like this for the past year. I am not surprised if Club Penguin sees a significant increase of penguins online in their stats. I expect a surge in membership sales, too. Lots of the old items that were released are classic and beloved items and who wouldn’t want to get their flippers on them?! Even if you’re not a member, nonmembers have a good amount of items available to them. The Club Penguin Twitter community’s been extremely active today. The release of this catalog has, without a single doubt, been a super success for Club Penguin.

But I also hear controversy about the catalog. I hear some speculations that because Club Penguin is releasing so many old items, the game is ending soon. I, on the other hand, believe that Club Penguin will not end for a long time. Club Penguin has been preparing for the Fashion Festival and at the same time, they gave players a chance to obtain retro items. When I saw those ties for sale, I was jubilant with joy. The point of items is not rarity, it’s dressing up and expressing your imagination. Besides, there are still quite a few old items that have not been released and still have a rare status, like the leis.

Are you happy with the new catalog and Club Penguin’s decision on this bold choice? What’s your favorite item in the catalog?

Hooray for cheese ties and tennis rackets!