Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force

For most of my early childhood under a conservative family, I wasn’t the most socially active person out there, and only interacted with other kids when it was important to do so. I also wasn’t the most popular kid, what with my round glasses, my timid demeanor, and the way my hair was always forced into a ponytail.
Browsing the internet when I was home (my dad allowed me to keep a computer in my room, even if he seemed reluctant about it when I first asked) was a surprisingly good coping mechanism to deal with the bullying I received from other people, and as childish as it was, I thought my true friends were the numerous stuffed animals I liked to talk to sometimes.
I think it was around the summer of 2009 when I learned about an MMO that Disney had bought just a few years ago: Club Penguin. There, I found some friends who would accept me as the shy dork that I was, much to my delight. I knew in my heart that every day during my adolescence period, after feeling stressed out at school, I could almost always rely on my online penguin buddies to cheer me up.
Unfortunately, Disney decided to axe the game in 2017 to make way for their “reboot” of sorts, Club Penguin Island. To be honest, I could never really get interested in it, and initially wasn’t even aware that it too had shut down less than a year later.
2022 was when I, now a 23-year-old in college, started really getting back into the Club Penguin fandom. I decided to start checking out the wiki pages left behind just for a rush of nostalgia, and happened to discover all the stuff I had apparently missed out on by sheer luck.
There were real characters called mascots that had planned visits for monthly parties and two whole spy organizations during Club Penguin’s entire existence: The Penguin Secret Agency, and the Elite Penguin Force.
More importantly, however, I learned that Club Penguin had two games released on the Nintendo DS. And it turned out they were both being sold for amazingly cheap prices on eBay.
The games quickly arrived, as did my first ever DS. The cartridge of the second game, Herbert’s Revenge, was in almost mint condition, but Elite Penguin Force’s sticker almost looked worn and faded in places, as if it had been years since it was played. I seemed not to care much, however, figuring the seller just had an immense collection of games and tended to let some of them sit for a while.
My hands practically shook with excitement as I popped the first game’s cartridge into the DS and powered it on, watching the company logos go by before the title screen popped up. I decided to name my penguin agent “Blorbo” since I really had no other ideas, and away I went to start the first mission, planning to use the wiki as my walkthrough.
As I played, however, I noticed something off about the game. The mascot Dot was apparently supposed to appear in various disguises to give you clues you had to figure out yourself, but in my playthrough the clues were just left abandoned on the ground. It actually took me about half a minute to find the first piece with how well it blended into the snow, but nonetheless I solved the puzzle and proceeded to the Lighthouse, where I was to meet Dot herself.
She popped out of one of the barrels as expected, but something was clearly very wrong. Her hair was frazzled and messy, her purple color was dark and dull, her jacket was unbuttoned, and her scarf was missing. The thing that stood out the most, however, was how her eyes were pitch-black, with only a pair of deep purple pupils staring up at me.
She was completely silent, with a smile that was more nervous than joyful, as she handed me another scrap of paper before ducking back into the barrel; this one simply read “MEET IN DOJO.” Upon tapping the screen to get rid of it, the game acted as if I had cleared the first mission. As confused as I was, I couldn’t help but do a nervous fist pump. “Yay?”
On to mission 2. The Dot-resembling entity was indeed waiting in the Dojo for me, but wasn’t accompanied by a puffle of any kind. She seemed to notice this, giving me another sheet of paper that read “FIND PUFFLES.” Well, that was my mission now, and I didn’t want to disappoint her.
I decided the best place to find puffles would be at the Pet Shop, so I went to the Plaza and tapped the door to go in. Well, there were indeed puffles, but I’m not quite sure how to describe what I noticed about them.
My best guess was that the puffles were dead.
No, there wasn’t any “hyperrealistic blood” splattered around the place or anything, but they all looked to be slumped over with their eyes shut, and tapping on them elicited absolutely no response. Not even a coin or anything, though I’m not sure why I expected there to be any.
I went back to the Dojo to report the news to who I now decided to call “D”, feeling my heart sink as I watched her visibly gasp in shock, then solemnly nod. She reached into her pocket and timidly offered me a broken, worn-out Puffle Whistle, which I still took despite knowing full-well it was practically unusable in this state. The mission then concluded, and I couldn’t really bring myself to get excited this time around.
Putting the missions on hold for the time being since I knew I wouldn’t get far anyway, I decided to try and follow the advice the UI on the top screen was giving me: “Waddle around and have some fun!” I was surprised to see D follow me wherever I went, but I ended up appreciating the companionship. Besides, as it turned out, the island was completely void of any other penguins.
D got progressively concerned with each barren room I explored, going from initially looking apprehensive to nervously pressing her flippers together and looking down at the ground. Even if she wasn’t the real Dot, and even if she only preferred to communicate through notes, it was clear she didn’t do well without anyone to talk to.
The atmosphere of dread was starting to get to me, so I decided to start the next mission. The game let me skip all the steps to get the Pro Board as well as the snowboarding minigame, surprisingly enough, instead letting me just go straight from the Ski Hill to the wilderness where I followed the path to find Rookie.
Upon reaching the screen where Rookie ordinarily would've been, however, the game hung on a black screen for a few seconds before suddenly displaying the mission complete screen. Well... I supposed I wouldn't see what kind of entity was impersonating him. I also noticed that, with each new mission completed, the music that played seemed to get lower and lower in pitch.
I'm not really sure how many missions I completed after that, but I was really starting to enjoy the game for what it was, notwithstanding D's presence and the fact that anyone besides her seemed to be completely absent. Her notes really helped me to figure out what to do, and the way she got happy after I completed each mission made me smile.
Around mission 10 or so, when I found the scrapbook pages of the plans Gary's service robots had, I couldn't help but wonder a little. I noticed that there was a microphone built into the DS, so I decided to go ahead and ask about what happened to the other mascots in the game.
D looked briefly forlorn before she gave me a response.
Everyone was dead, just like the puffles. D was just an entity created through unknown means to simulate the old Dot in her place, since, as I quickly realized, the game wouldn't be playable otherwise.
While I should have expected this, it still made my heart sink deeper than it had when I first saw D's solemn expression. What on earth happened to this game for things to get this bad? Surely this copy of the game couldn't have been linked to the actual shutdown...?
Upon finishing the last few remaining missions, my fears were confirmed. An ending cutscene played where a completely alone D waddled through the PSA HQ with no music to accompany it, her flippers in the pockets of her coat and her head down. She then sat down on one of the chairs and visibly sighed, pulling one last note out of her pocket and looking over it with a tearful smile.
It was a faded, almost-incomprehensibly-pixelated picture of the Town crowded with players. In the blank space below it was written, in shaky purple handwriting, "IT WAS BEAUTIFUL ONCE."
Category:Games
Category:Club Penguin
Category:Video Games
Category:Longpasta