Hi everyone, let me start off by giving massive apology for not posting in a good few months. I went rouge and I don't expect to be forgiven for this. I'll explain this in a different post. So last year I got the chance to play around on Club Penguin. My son is way to young for this but as an avid gamer and also a parent it really intrigued me to see just how safe and user friendly this game is. I've heard a lot of stuff about Club Penguin mostly about how people have been banned for saying outrageous (and sometimes funny) things.
So first things first registration. How was it? Well it was both easy and difficult. Easy due to the layout and options very user friendly....apart from one thing that bugged me too kingdom come.....picking a username. It literally took me ages. In the end I finally found I could pick cndyflosscld. I felt a bit worried because if I was getting stressed about this then my dear lord I couldn't imagine the frustration a child would have. I was surprised it didn't give me usernames that were available for me to chose maybe that would make it easier?
Once activating the account you will get to chose between two different chat modes.
1. Standard safe chat mode (players type their own messages which are filtered before they appear in world).
2. ultimate safe mode (plays choose from a menu of set phrases and only see other ultimate safe chat messages).
For older children I would trust the standard safe chat mode but with younger children (age 10 or under) I personally would chose the ultimate safe chat mode. I chose ultimate safe chat mode to try it out but found that there wasn't much talking going on anyway. Everyone seemed to keep to themselves. Obviously children might have a different experience but I feel relaxed as a parent knowing that their chat options are monitored and some what limited.
At the log in screen as with most websites it has a box that allows you to save your password. I was pleasantly surprised that it warns you about saving your password, as anyone that gets into your account could get your penguin banned or spend your coins. I think this is a great starting point for children to learn about internet safety.
So once in the game what happened? Well you get a fairly standard but fun introduction. your shown how to do many things. One of these being how to buy clothes to dress up your penguin. I did find it odd however that it didn't tell you how to actually put the clothes on. I had to figure that out for myself which was a tad bit frustrating. I also noticed that when you went to adopt a puffle there seemed to be no back button. The good thing I found though was that quests were added regularly and I'm a gamer who LOVES quests. Wen I complete quests in a game and there is no more I find myself becoming really bored and I just stop playing it.
All in all I think this is a great fun and SAFE game for children to play. I wouldn't say it's educational but then not every game has to be right? It's okay for children to play a game just for fun. I'd be more then happy when David is older for him to play this considering how much thought and consideration Disney as put into making this a safe but friendly and fun game. So with all that being said what are your thoughts? Do you have any children that already play this?
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