Halloween Party 2016 Critique

Hello penguins! Last year, I introduced my party critiques by discussing the Halloween Party 2015. This year, I will go into more depth and discuss different elements that changed this year. So let's begin!


The art is pretty good. My favorite room has to be the Ski Lodge. The pumpkins are placed in locations that feel good, almost strategic. The hanging lights and the fish skeleton are really cool graphics, and the Ski Lodge just looks magnificent in the dark.

Another favorite of mine is the Dance Club. The pumpkins look really cool, especially the Astro-Barrier pumpkin by the stairwell. The candelabras are interesting, and the large pumpkin by SoundStudio is very detailed. The tiles behind the large pumpkin have great coloring.

The amazing art doesn't come without a few issues, though. For example, the pumpkin next to the Lighthouse door has a few issues. The shadow erases part of the doormat, and the right side of this Jack-o-Lantern appears to be in front of the support beam when it really should be behind it. This issue has been present at every Halloween Party since 2011, but every year it goes unchanged, and every year I lose my patience just a bit more.

Another glitch is the Pizza Parlor glitch. This problem presents the pumpkins behind the counter instead of atop it in the Pizza Parlor.

This clearly wasn't intentional, because the .SWF file didn't have this issue.

It's just the actual display in the game that's off.


The Halloween Party often has some of the best music, so let's examine what is on the table this year.

The main theme for this party is 1035. It is a remaster of a track from the Halloween Party 2008 titled Under the Cover of the Storm. It is a great song to listen to; I love it. It even includes a triangle.

The track 1055 is a remaster of an older song called Halloween Jam. It features some great instrumentation from the piano and the violin, and the background of the track even includes a triangle and sandpaper. At one point, all of the instruments cut out and all that's heard is the sound of thunder. It's really fun to listen to.

My favorite song from the party is 1036. The only instruments I can recognize are an 808 drum and possibly a harp, but trust me, it's really good. The last track fit really well with the Nightclub from the Halloween Party 2007, but this one fits best with the flashier, bigger, more animated and interactive Nightclub from recent Halloween Parties.

The Nightclub from the Halloween Party 2007

The Pizza Parlor track, 1033, is also an entertaining tune. It is basically a looping instrumental of Gotta Get the Gotcha from Halloween Panic. My favorite part is when the piano starts to play, just before the hook. The main part of the song, the chorus, is essentially a remix of random voice samples to a tune. It's wonderful. I would say this is a wonderful Club Penguin track, but sadly, this song was not made by Club Penguin. It appeared in a YouTube video by Thomas Ridgewell in 2014. I will not name it here, but if you ask me by clicking this link and sending me a tweet, I will tell you.

The Mine Shack's theme (1041) is alright. The only instrument it is an organ, which would be okay if the song didn't have a bunch of sound effects in it, but since it's still very spooky and interesting to listen to, I don't mind it too much.


Since most of the rooms are the same as they were last year, there isn't much to say here; but I'll try.

Transformations from 2012 and 2013 returned, including three zombies, three vampires, three werewolves, and a new ghost that has not been seen before. They are all very cool, but unfortunately, they are completely randomized with no way of choosing which creature or color you mutate into. The system is flawed, but still enjoyable and interesting.

Just like they did in 2015, the tube tables at the Dance Lounge have returned as well. I think these are quite neat, and I would not mind seeing them used yet again in the near future.



Aside from that, penguins with the Miner's Helmet or Hard Hat can turn the Iceberg into a Jack-o-Lantern. This is a good deal more fun with friends, for it takes longer to achieve this alone.

But aside from all of that, the main quest is a new scavenger hunt. This quest is quite basic, just requiring the player to find and collect all three of a specific variant of spectral sweet hidden in a room. There are sweets of other colors in order to confuse you, though, so beware.

This quest is very simple and doesn't provide me with a decent amount of content. Another thing is, unlike trick-or-treating or the hotel quests from former Halloween Parties, these cannot be redone at any point; but other than that, these quests are harmless. I tend to overlook them.


The story here is quite simple. Spectral sweets have appeared all over the island, and it is your duty to collect them all to provide a power source for the aforementioned Monster Maker 3000, located at the Beach. I see no problem with this, but I wish the team had explained us why these candies had been placed where they were.


This Halloween Party was great. I can't say it's as great as good as 2015, but it is a lot more enjoyable than the 2014 Halloween Party. It involved great returning elements and decorations, some new and old music, and some exellent activities. This Halloween Party ranks in as an 8/10. Goodbye!

Thanks to the Club Penguin Wiki, the Club Penguin Wiki Archives, and Pokebub for information and assets.

If for whatever reason you want to read the unedited version with typographical and factual errors, please, be my guest. Click here to read it.

Frozen Fever Party 2016 Critique

Hello penguins! Today I will be critiquing the last takeover of 2016, the second Frozen Fever Party! Let us begin!

The decorations at this party were not good. The rooms that were decorated intentionally were medicore, and I don't much to say about them, but it's the rooms that were modified unintentionally that had issues.

Minor nitpick, but the archway at the Ski Village was missing for the duration of this party.

The Ski Village regularly, as of June 2015

The Ski Village during the Frozen Fever Party 2016

Another nitpick, but the fireplace located inside the Ski Lodge seems to have frozen unexpectedly throughout this event.



This is more of a serious problem. For the first four weeks of this event, the PSA Missions and the EPF Handbook were completely inaccessible.

What the EPF Command Room is supposed to look like

What the EPF Command Room looked like during the
Frozen Fever Party

Another major issue is that the Puffle Berry Mall was inaccessible from the Plaza for the first 2 weeks of this event.

Not to mention the Mall being completely shut off to anyone without a spy phone and the fact that this complete rehash that will last weeks.

— Chilly573 (@Chilly573) August 17, 2016

The party rooms also had frozen variants. Let us now discuss those..

The Town is my favorite frozen variant of them all. The pattern on the ground is completely concealed under the ice. I especially like the coloring on the fish. It is amusing how the sign on the Coffee Shop was modified to "Iced Coffee" after it's chilled. The coloring on the Dance Club windows is especially interesting here.

Another great room is the Cove.

I really like the coloring on the snow fort, especially the floor and the pointy tops on the towers. The umbrellas have wonderful shading, and the ice is, as usual, very elegant.


The music at this party was a positive overall.

The second song was 909, and it is quite peculiar. It is clearly a 2014 track. It features a xylophone, just as the original Town Center theme from the day after this party. but unlike the first Town Center music, this one is controlled and quiet most of the way through, and the Town Center music is just loud and unpleasant.

The next track is 1131, and it's really cool. It fits the theme of ice quite a lot. I wouldn't be surprised if this would play at an upcoming Festival of Snow or an event similar to this. It also has a style similar to the music from Plants vs. Zombies with the string instrument (which I cannot put my finger on at this current moment) and the chimes that play every ten seconds or so. (Here's the Plants vs. Zombies link, even though that music is better.)

The main theme, 1132, is decent. It has some respectable instrumentation, including a good selection of wind instruments and a violin. This is exactly what I would imagine the main theme to a Frozen Party would sound like. It's extremely peppy and fun. It works a lot better than the Town Center's music from the previous Frozen Parties, for those sound a bit too much as if they were trying to make me feel really emotional for a simple party. That song is 910.

My favorite song from this party was definitely 1133. It has really nice instrumentation, and has a slightly more important tone. It sounds like it's from the Marvel Superhero Takeover, but it also has a very Frozen sound to it. It also brings back the horn from the Card-Jitsu party theme, and you can't go wrong there. It's great fun, and I love to listen to it.

The final track is 1135, and I'm not a fan. For a decent length of the runtime, the only instruments are a piano and a tambourine. There is also some harp and various string instruments in there, but they are in the background for just a fraction of it. This song also gets extremely repetitive quickly. It has 2 parts to it, and they are both different. There's a definite split in the track between them. They don't flow together nicely, and it is extremely bothersome.


The items available were very hit-and-miss. On one hand, we have Snowgies, which is extremely hideous, and the low-polygon count of their eyes make them look like demons.

On the other hand, the Solid Ice encored. The Solid Ice is a gorgeous item that transforms your penguin into ice. It has many different shades of blue and indigo, with snowflake prints and really unique shading. I love it.

The playability at the Frozen parties is like no other. Penguins had the ability to freeze rooms, which has only been seen in small doses with the Holiday Party 2012. The rooms were then unfrozen using the heart emote. This was an interesting concept, but without at least 2 people actively freezing and unfreezing the room, it got quite dull, very quickly. They should have introduced a type of secret reward system that would grant you 500 coins for freezing 2 entire rooms, or something along those lines.

Rooms such as the Beach, Snow Forts, and Town Center do not have many elements to interact with. All of the other rooms, though, have an abundance. The Forest, for example, has many elements in Oaken's shop, as well as the Reindeer Puffle stables. The Dock has many pins, paint, and Oaken's Cloakens, graphical glitches aside.

A problem with the Dock's .SWF file

The story at this party is, if the definition of "story" allows for it, Anna's birthday. There isn't much else, except the collection of pins. This category will not be considered in the ranking.


This party was yet another disappointment. It had some decent elements included in it, including good music and some great items; but due to many graphical and technical glitches, as well as an unwarranted 6-week runtime, this party sadly gets a 3/10.

What did you think of the Frozen Fever Party? Is it better or worse than the Frozen Party 2014? Goodbye!

Thanks to the Club Penguin Wiki for info and the Club Penguin Archives for use of files. To read the unedited, uncut version of this post, with bonus material that was removed from the final version, click here.

Finding Dory Party Critique

Hello penguins! Welcome back to Club Penguin Secrets for another party critique. This week, I'll be critiquing the recent Finding Dory Party, which many have debated over in the community. But first, let us review with this video showcasing the party.


And without further ado, let us now initiate the critique.


As always, I will begin by discussing the rooms. This party had very few rooms, yet fun decorations and some clever design choices, most especially in the Town Center and the Cove.

The cove has the chairs replaced with clamshells, and the overhead lanterns connecting the Surf Shack to the first responders' building have been replaced with glowing jellyfish. The shrubs near the surfboards have been replaced by various pieces of coral and sea life.

The Town Center has an interesting model as well. The disco ball on the exterior of the Danceclub has been swapped out for a smiling puffer fish, which is strangely dissimilar to the puffer fish in Aqua Grabber. The Clothes Shop sign has a shark bite in it, and the blue lamps outside have again been replaced by luminous jellyfish. The plants to the right of the Clothes Shop have been replaced by coral.

One of my favorite details, though, would have to be at the Dock. If you look closely, penguins are lined up against the window examining the sea life. This is similar to fish displays at many zoos across the world.

Now I will examine the music for the party. The first track, 1124, is fast-paced and entertaining. It starts off with a flute or similar instrument and then has an upbeat string instrument as well as a xylophone. It is quite fun, and fits with the Beach's decorations.

Track 1126 is quite peculiar. It has bongo drums playing softly in the background; and one part of this tune, a part toward the end, sound like it was sampled from 313, which played at the Card-Jitsu Party in November 2011.

My favorite music at this party would have to be 1129, which played at the Cove. It is the theme from the Winter Luau, and was used at the April Fools Party 2011 and Operation: Blackout (. My favorite part of this song is when the guitar dies down a bit and the main instrument gets quieter. The drums have a bit of an echo effect for a bit then, and it's relaxing.


This party had a good amount of items available. While you could track Rookie and obtain his autograph for free, the rest of the items were available by completing tasks in the party interface. While most of the items are mediocre, some stand out. My favorite costume is the Crush costume. The shading on this one looks especially good, even if the head is a bit too big.

Two backgrounds were released at this party. While the Finding Dory Background is a bit dull, the Reef Background is very colorful and I always find cool little things about it.

The anemone is really cool and each little blade is shaded perfectly. The coral hut is interesting and has a maze-like texture. There is a portion of what appears to be sand in the bottom corner with a sort of wood-like consistency. Fun fact: this background and the Finding Dory Background have the same name on French servers. Oops.

This party has a respectable amount of things to play with. Every day until July 13th, you could log in and have another quest to find things. My favorite is from the Cove with the sand, because it was difficult and took me over 5 minutes.

I never would have guessed this spot. It took me a while to find it.
Thanks to 1999bloo for recording this.

My least favorite is the Dock because they didn't put any of the sunglasses in the gift shop where they would blend in. But props to the team at this party; the 3 items were hidden well most of the time, which is something I cannot say for parties such as the ongoing Frozen Fever Party or the School and Skate Party from September 2014.

The story is one of the more forgotten elements of this party. Dory has forgotten her way home and it's your job to collect objects to jog her memory. It's a nice, simple story. I'm not sure how sand would jog memory, but I haven't seen the movie, and maybe it's special sand.

This party was disappointing. The content we got was more than decent, but it had the power to be so much more. If they had just decorated three or four more rooms such as the Forest and the Plaza, I may have favored this party over Zootopia; but as it is, Zootopia is better. This party ranks at 5.5/10. Goodbye!

Thanks to The Club Penguin Wiki, The Club Penguin Wiki Archives, and 1999bloo (Twitter) for images, music, and videos. If you would like to see the unedited, uncut version of this critique, click here.

Oh, man, I have to stop writing party critiques all the time. It takes almost 4 hours to write just one of these.

Operation: Tri-umph Party Review

Oops, I messed up my schedule so now I have two party reviews in a row. Oh well.

Hello penguins! Today I am going to be talking about Operation: Tri-umph, also known as Operation: Doom. I sure am late posting this, so let's get started.


First of all, I am going to talk about the rooms. During the first week, only the Snow Forts was decorated. I do not think this is a good idea, nor did the community, and I am fully aware of why; This room isn't very good.

The dance floor does not look okay. It has these awkward ellipses in the middle that make the floor look odd; I'm glad they haven't done it since. The satellite sticking into the ground appears like it's facing completely in the opposite direction.... for some odd reason. I do like how the flags have been turned into disco balls, though. That's cool.

In week three, my favorite decorations were released.

I like the Plaza, but I don't know why the Pet Shop, Park, the three hotel rooms, and the Underground Pool aren't in gray. Oh well. I like how the items available in this room are in a briefcase instead of a crate as the last two were.


Now I am going to judge review the music in this party.

The first track, 1105, is quite obnoxious. It has a ton of screaming in the background, and it gets annoying very quickly. It is quite repetitive and repeats itself after less than a minute, 55.353 seconds to be exact. It never comes to a complete stop; it is quite definite where it begins and ends. The buildup seems to have just 5 or 6 notes used multiple times. Somewhere near the middle of the track, there is a portion that just plays twelve notes, made up of four different piano keys, while the artist repeatedly presses the same button on an 808 drum really quickly, which bothers me quite a bit.

The Town Center's music, 1109, is a remake of Track 297 from the Fall Fair parties, and is quite fitting with how much buzz the Town Center recieved in the second week of this party. It includes the buzzing of small vehicles in it, matching how it encourages playing around with little cars and stuff; not to mention that the most popular cars, the Wheelers, are from the Fair 2011.

And finally, the Cave Maze's music, 899, is welcoming and fun. It starts off slowly, but gets better as time goes on. It begins with some odd (possibly string) instrument, which plays two measures four times, but then it turns into an epic tune reminding me of the Festival of Flight for a few seconds and then encores the two measures four more times. After this portion of the track, a magnificent xylophone part is played and really reminds me of the Adventure Party 2009 and a bit of the Temple of Fruit and the Underwater Expedition from 2012. This xylophone part is definitely my favorite part of the song; I am a bit disappointed that it isn't present for longer.


The items were quite controversial for this party, and now I'll explain why.

This party has no new free items, but instead has 3 returning free items and 18 new free items for members only. They tried to boost sales for memberships, so they spent their time remaking a few old free items as members only, when they should have just let them be. The worst of these is probably the Music Jam Cap (ID 1266). Said cap, which was re-released for the 10th Anniversary Party, is for all players; yet the Dance Battle Cap (ID 21077), which is completely identical, is for members only.

Besides that, a few of the items, especially in the Town Center, seem just a tad improbable. For example, a large spoon will serve no purpose unless you run a site such as mine or PengFeed.

I know it's been said a bunch, but I wish they would've made at least three items for non-members.


And now, the most important factor of every party, the playability.

While we didn't get many things to do in the first week of the party, a lot more content was released in the second week. The Town Center has some really nice, fun things to do. We can play on the roads and the baseball diamond while we are super small.

The third week, the Plaza rooms were released, and this set was definitely the best. It had the maze returning from the Cave Maze event from May 2015. A lot of people reacted as if this was a bad or stupid thing, but I think it is quite wonderful. It gives newer players the opportunity to play a maze, and it adds to the otherwise small amount of events to do at this event. In doing this, they also give older players the chance to complete the maze, had they forgotten to log in for a few weeks in May 2015. I would say that the playability in this party is hit or miss.


The storyline for this event is simple and basic. Herbert decided that to make the penguins less of a nuisance, he would build a dance party at the Snow Forts. Second, he would use a shrinking machine to make all of the penguins really small. And third of all, he would take the color out of 2 and 1/2 rooms on the wonderful island of Club Penguin. To stop Herbert's evil scheme, the penguins had to find the main controls for the machines and shut it down. This is all well and good, except for a few questions: What would hosting a dance party do? I'm not completely sure. How would shrinking penguins make them less of a nuisance? Why didn't Herbert make any big machines like the Popcorn Bomb and the Sun Blocking Ray? This plan seems as he Herbert has stopped trying. In retrospect, this story sucks.


This party was a bit of a let-down. It had a few decent decorations, and the music was overall okay. The items weren't good, but it had a decent amount of things to do for a few days. The biggest problem was probably the story. I'd give this party a 4/10. Goodbye!

I would like to thank the Club Penguin Wiki and The Club Penguin Wiki Archives for use of .SWF files to take screenshots of, as well as music files. If you would like to see the unedited, uncut version of this blog post for whatever reason, click here.