Club Penguin Journey has been a hot commodity in the recent weeks as armies begin to test the waters of its player base, even beginning to hold weekly events on the platform. As a result of Amman’s growing presence in our Discord server, we took the chance to ask him some questions.

Designed by Wynn

origins

Club Penguin Journey was founded by Amman and Hexeption. The private server was originally founded on December 13, 2022 as strictly a passion project. Eventually, plans changed as Amman joined forces with James and Misabr for a public release in early February. Their goal was to create a private server that focuses on the 2009-2012 era of Club Penguin: recreation, preservation and revival of the Club Penguin community and game.

Many developers have resonated with these values and joined their team. The list of names range from Allinol, Anvura, ChrisCPI, Did, Drop, Duta, Jeff, Tbosk and Wlan. In the words of Amman, “The essence of Club Penguin Journey was to facilitate the unfulfilled dreams of old and pew players,” and essentially take them on a journey. If you’ve ever logged onto Club Penguin Journey, you might notice that the game is not nearly as active as Club Penguin Rewritten. Despite pumping out immense content cycles, Journey still has not captured an active playing audience.

So, the question is, can armies provide that push?

Club Penguin Journey at approximately 9:30pm EST

Specifics 

During our testing of Club Penguin Journey, we found it to be a small but friendly game. When playing Journey, you’ll often encounter the same people online, which can be viewed as either an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on your preferences. However, this trend could change in the future, as numerous people are joining the Discord server every day. We did not witness any dramas or inappropriate behavior during our approximately two weeks of testing the private server.

Create A Penguin

Before we delve into how the process of creating an account works, we would like to remind everyone that it is always a good idea to use a VPN, a new password and a new email when playing any online game. Although Club Penguin Journey logs the email that you input, it is not required to activate your penguin, so you can provide a fake one. Journey also prompts you to agree to the safety rules before you can create your account.

The interface will not prohibit you from entering bad words as the penguin’s name, but every nickname needs to be approved. There are no requirements concerning the password.

Create a penguin on Club Penguin Journey

Features 

Club Penguin Journey has rooms mostly designed in the classic, pre-2013 style. Unlike many other HTML5 private servers that have emerged since Club Penguin Rewritten’s closure, it provides access to all rooms. Furthermore, Journey features several custom ones. Surprisingly, not only are most mini-games functional as well, but custom-made games have also been added. Unfortunately, everyone’s favorite Sled Race is not available at the moment.

The game appears to receive regular updates with new catalogs, newspapers, parties, pins and other features. Additionally, if you want to stay up to date with changes and fun events, you can join a well-organized Discord server. It also uses a ticket system to communicate with the staff.

Moderation

Almost every time we logged into the game, we noticed a staff member or even an admin online, sometimes chatting with other players. The CPPS also has a rather well-made filter in use, which even covers bad words in some other languages and warns you when you try to say inappropriate things. At the same time, it’s not overly strict like Club Penguin Rewritten’s filter, although a few improvements could still be made. No word results in an instant ban, but the staff seems to keep an eye on the chat logs.

Interview

Club Penguin Armies is thankful to be able to speak with Amman one-on-one.

Who are the current administrators of Club Penguin Journey (CPJ)?

Hexeption, Misabr, Winter and I are the current admins of CPJ.

Are armies allowed to use CPJ for events? How does that process work?

Armies are allowed to use CPJ as long as they stick to the rules of the game itself (no inappropriate language/behavior/slurs). It is also advised for armies to give a heads-up if they are planning on having a massive-scale event in order for us to ensure we are also prepared. Armies are free to do their events as long as they are not going out of their way to be disruptive/disrespectful towards other users who are playing at the time. Recruitment in-game is heavily advised against; this is because it only gives armies a bad look. It is much better if users organically join the armies by noticing the cool events being held by them in-game and then seeking to speak with an army representative in order to join.

Does CPJ log any personal information? Is that information hidden from the admins?

The only personal information that CPJ logs are emails. Passwords are hashed using Bcrypt and none of the admins who have database access can see these encrypted passwords. We also do not log IPs.

What would happen if someone were to break CPJ rules (via means of botting), how would the banning process work? Does banning them require you to view their IP or does it stay encrypted 100% of the time?

In case of botting, we tweak our automated systems to get rid of the perpetrators since our automated systems will continue to ban perpetrators who log on and spam. We have been working on new and improved verification systems that help make the game a troll free experience.

Are there features in place to make it hard for people to log onto multiple accounts at one time?

Currently there are no restrictions that make it hard for users to log onto multiple accounts at once. You can simply open a new tab and play on your other account.

Never can escape the multilogging

Is there a filter preventing use of swearing, harassment, etc.?

There is a filter in place; it is a contextual filter that does not punish harshly. It warns users randomly at times but that is only because it has detected a “possible” context. It does not add onto the heat system. Our filter is also judged by profanity, toxicity and sexual content levels so anything that is filtered, goes through the metrics first and only then does the filter take action according to the filter actions we have set.

Do moderators have direct connection to the game’s database or is it only admins?

There are only two people within the CPJ staff team with database access and none of the mods can access anything remotely close to the database, including in-game user information. Security and safety is of the utmost importance to us and data cannot just be handed to everyone.

Note that Amman would not provide the names of those two people for security reasons.

While personal information seems to be protected, it has yet to be seen how trustworthy the private server will be compared to Battleground which is ran by a fellow army legend. Multilogging is incredibly easy on Journey, posing the question if a multiplier should be added to events hosted on Journey similarly to how it was for the Yukon private server. Finally, the server itself does not seem to be incredibly popular with the general Club Penguin population. Despite its downloadable client, New Club Penguin seems to be home to the largest penguin population.

At this time, I believe the correct form of action to take is to be patient. While some armies have been hosting “break” events on the server, I personally have not been able to come to the conclusion if making a full jump to the private server is worth it. Time will tell, so we will continue to wait and see what this Journey could have in store for us. Is Club Penguin Journey a viable future for armies?

More Information

mchappy2

Mchappy is interning at Club Penguin Armies as the Chief Executive Producer. Max held him at gunpoint to finish his biography.