My Penguin Walkthrough and Review – A Solid App With Many Features

My Penguin launched on the App Store earlier today, and it was definitely worth the wait. I’m dead serious, this application is amazing. Puffle Launch on mobile devices doesn’t even come close to the full Club Penguin experience, but My Penguin does a great job at making it a reality. You can do quite a bit from this currently iPad only application. You can manage your buddy list, change your outfit, buy some clothing items, and even play games for coins. The best part? It all automatically syncs with Club Penguin. It’s that awesome. Club Penguin has spent more than a year, maybe even two or more working on My Penguin. All this hard work has really paid off. It’s everything you would expect this application to be like. It truly is like Club Penguin on the go, on a smaller screen. Throughout this review I’ll show you pretty much everything in the app, include a few videos, and even talk about my opinions on some things. Let’s get started shall we?

First thing is first – the initial game launch. When you open My Penguin for the first time you’ll get a popup saying that the application would like to send you push notifications. Hit “OK” if you want them – you’ll get notifications for things such as daily sushi reminders.

After that, tap the blank penguin outline to login. You can have up to four penguin accounts added – more on that later. You can also create a penguin directly from the app.

After logging in your penguin’s current outfit will appear along with the penguin name. In the top right corner there is a small button to switch penguins.

The application, as I briefly mentioned above, has several different key components. There’s the managing your penguin, playing games, and also keeping up with the latest news. All of the buttons are pretty explanatory. If you look in the image above you’ll see a little badge in the top right corners of the blog and videos icons. When you see that, tap them! It means you’ll get some sushi to play the Sushi Drop game. They’re collected from using the app. Check it out below. YouTube videos are fetched from the official Club Penguin YouTube Channel. On the left side you swipe up and down to view them. It includes the video title and date it was uploaded. Tapping the video brings it up to play on the right side of the screen as well as the video’s description. Tap the video’s play icon (triangle in a circle) to actually play the video.

The blog is identical to Club Penguin’s regular blog. You can comment on blog posts directly from the app.

Another awesome part of My Penguin is the ability to manage your own friend’s list. You can add buddies, remove buddies, make penguins your bestfriend, and throw snowballs.

Tap on a penguin to throw a snowball at them by tapping the “throw snowball” button. You then tap the snowball to throw it at them. It’ll appear in game and they can throw one back too! It’s pointless but still lots of fun!

To remove a buddy, first you tap on their playercard icon then click the “x” icon in the top left corner of their playercard that pops up.

…and I got snowballed back. Tap the snow to see who snowballed you and throw a snowball in return!

In the regular Club Penguin if a penguin is in My Penguin it’ll say “mobile” on your buddy list.

If someone throws a snowball at you it’ll appear on the screen. Click it to send one back!

Clicking it brings up a popup looking like this. Hit yes or no or just close it, whichever you want.

If you send one back it will tell you it successfully done it.

Another feature of my penguin is sending friend requests. To add penguins you tap in the search box in the top right corner, type in their name, then tap the add friend button as long as the penguin is found.

Now, earlier I mentioned you can have multiple penguins in the application. That is true. On the main page, when you tap the icon in the top right corner, it’ll bring up the accounts page. Simply tap an empty box to add a new login.

Or, of course, you can create a penguin instead:

Once you login it will switch to that penguin. You can switch back by returning to the accounts page and tapping the penguin you want.

It does notify you of friend requests, too! I can’t add (send or receive) friend requests on Trainman1405, but on Pinguiny, a friend’s penguin that I own, I can. As a result, as soon as I logged in I was notified of friend requests! I had two, as there is a “2” on the friends button.

…and then it changed to 3! I went to the buddy list and in the bottom right corner there was an orange 3.

Tapping that opens up the friend requests you have. It’ll list their name, outfit once it loads, and gives you the option to say yes or no. I of course said yes.

What’s really nice is you can switch at any time. Right after accepting friend requests on Pinguiny I switched right back to Trainman. This app is fast and responsive. It’s great.

In the bottom left of the main screen there is an info button. It brings up this page:

You can also tap your penguin to make different emotes appear. Try it!

You might also get this popup after an hour or two of gameplay asking you to rate the app. Nothing major, do it if you want. 5 stars for sure!

Now for what will probably be one of the most popular parts of the app – changing your outfit! Just like on the regular Club Penguin, items are organised by type but you can also view them all at once. You use your finger to swipe up and down through your inventory. Tap on the items on your penguin to take them off or just tap the item you want to wear in your inventory. Your playercard also shows your membership page and current amount of coins. You can also access a catalogue from this app.

I do not know how often the catalogue will be updated. Based on it reading “May 2013” on the cover, I think monthly. Here is the full catalogue. A lot of it is recent items on the regular Club Penguin game, but there are some pages with mobile exclusive items! Pages with the membership badge are items requiring membership. Pages with the mobile icon mean they’re mobile exclusive items. Pages with the mobile and membership badge icon mean they’re mobile exclusive items for members. To get an item tap the buy button or the item. If you already have it it’ll tell you.

From here to the flag pins are mobile exclusive items.

The Blackbird
Cost: 250

The Step Up
Cost: 150

Stand Out Outfit
Cost: 400

Green Scene Jacket
Cost: 400

Gold Bling Bracelet
Cost: 175

Sweet Spikester Cuffs
Cost: 170

Golden Shiny Shoes
Cost: 200

Purple Sneakers
Cost: 250

The Midnight
Cost: 350

Real Teal Sunglasses
Cost: 150

Lemon Lime Stripe Bikini
Cost: 400

Kiwi Purse
Cost: 150

The Blast
Cost: 350

Star Shades
Cost: 150

Street Surf Shorts
Cost: 400

Clam Shell Collar
Cost: 200

The Styled Messy
Cost: 350

Purple Toque
Cost: 150

The Sleek Chic
Cost: 350

Goes with Everything Shirt
Cost: 400

Brown Leather Watch
Cost: 150

Green Slouch Purse
Cost: 150

Nautical Necklace
Cost: 100

Blue Skater Shoes
Cost: 200

The Tunage
Cost: 400

The Auburn
Cost: 400

Green Zebra Scarf
Cost: 150

Purple Beaded Necklace
Cost: 150

White Electro Shirt
Cost: 250

Purple Polka-dot Dress
Cost: 350

Green High Tops
Cost: 250

Purple Sandals
Cost: 160

The Reverie
Cost: 350

The Funktastic
Cost: 350

Layered Sunset Outfit
Cost: 550

Sandy Shore Outfit
Cost: 550

Plum Slippers
Cost: 250

Golden Shades
Cost: 100

Fireworks Bangle
Cost: 100

Off the Cuff
Cost: 175

The Giddy
Cost: 350

The Thrill-Billy
Cost: 300

Pop-n-Lock Music Shirt
Cost: 200

Trendy Red Shirt
Cost: 200

Pink Starglasses
Cost: 100

Yellow Bass Guitar
Cost: 550

Neon Pink Sneakers
Cost: 300

Slate Untied Sneakers
Cost: 200

Here’s a quick video showing a few of the minor parts of My Penguin:

The most important part of the My Penguin app is probably games. Games, just like in the regular Club Penguin, are played to earn coins. As of writing, there are four: Pufflescape, Ice Fishing, Puffle Rescue, and Puffle Roundup. There is also a fifth one in the works, but it is unknown which. I’m able to talk about all of them except Pufflescape, which would not work. (probably because I was playing it on the iPad 1 which isn’t supposed to have the app! Directions on how to do that can be found here) All games are just like their regular version, but instead of a mouse you use your finger or fingers – whatever you find comfortable!

Let’s start with Ice Fishing, shall we? The game is nearly the same as the regular version minus a few small differences. There is no Flashing Lure Rod, only the regular rod. There is also no mullet.

You only get up to 60 fish and then the game ends.

Gameplay is the same. You use your finger to play and move the rod. Tap the screen and move your finger down to move the line downward, do the opposite to bring it upward. Once the fish is above the ice you tap above the ice (if you tap below the line goes back down to where you tapped) to put it in the cooler. The game has the same obstacles like jellyfish and boots as pictured below.

Once you reach 60 fish the game ends and you can collect your coins!

Here’s a video of me playing Ice Fishing:

Now for Puffle Rescue! Currently you can play the Blue Puffle and Pink Puffle levels, with the Black Puffle levels saying “coming soon”. This is a lot of fun on the iPad. Rather than using your keyboard’s arrow keys like on Club Penguin, you continuously swipe in the direction you want to go!

The game’s instructions:

Level 1:

Level 9:

Level 12:

Level 18:

It’s a quick way to get coins – I got 13,491 in just 18 levels!

Here’s a video of me playing Puffle Rescue real quick:

Puffle Roundup is also another game in My Penguin. The game is the same as the regular online version, but you use your finger to round them up! It takes a little practice but you get the hang of it.

The instructions:

Gameplay:

Now while I can’t get Pufflescape to work on the iPad since it’s not officially supported, 16 levels are currently playable with more coming soon.

Now for the final part…sushi! Sushi is earned through using the app. Overtime you collect more and more. The sushi can be used to play the iPad only sushi drop game. The game is like Plinko, if you’re familiar with that. You drop a ball (in this case sushi) and it falls down a maze going whatever way it pleases. To access sushi drop, on the main page with your penguin you tap the sushi tray.

To start the game you tap the tray and aim where you want the sushi to drop.

You watch it fall down and hit rocks and move all over. Hitting fish gets you extra coins too!

Downwards it continues…

At the bottom there’s clams, each with a different amount of coins. 150, 200, etc.

200 coins for this round:

150 coins for another round:

…and so on. There are collectable items, too!

Also, because the game uses lots of images, you can easily edit it to your liking if you know what you’re doing as demonstrated below…I got rid of the background and made it say my name. ;) Only you see this change.

That’s about it for the My Penguin overview! Now for a quick review and opinion on it.

The bottom line is, if you’ve got an iPad, GET IT IF YOU CAN. For what this app can do, especially since it’s free, it’s awesome. You don’t need to be a member on Club Penguin, you just need a penguin account, an iPad, and iTunes. This app puts Puffle Launch for iOS and Android to shame. My Penguin has countless hours of gameplay – I spent over an hour playing the games and trying everything out before writing all this! It’s far more fun than Puffle Launch. My Penguin has done a great job at bringing key aspects of the Club Penguin game to a mobile screen and I can’t wait to see what else Club Penguin has planned for the future. I’m sure they’re already working on the next update, as there are more game levels coming soon and they already started translating it to Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese – I was looking at the app’s files and saw some of the language translation is already in progress. The game has only a few small bugs – nothing major at all. The gameplay is solid, there’s lots of features already…it’s basically got everything you could ask for. Maybe in the future we’ll get the messaging feature Spike Hike teased in January, the ability to edit our igloos, or even more games? Multiplayer games would definitely be cool! What else would you like to see in My Penguin that currently is not there? And if you’ve got the application, are you liking My Penguin as much as I am or are you disliking it?

In closing, to the Club Penguin Team, I congratulate you on such a fantastic job well done. Waiting and putting in so much time and effort into this app has really paid off. And to those with an iPad, what are you waiting for?! Download My Penguin now! Get it free on the app store here. You can view Club Penguin’s commonly asked questions and answers about the new app here.