What Could Have Been / Club Penguin

Concept art for puffles, drawn sometime before November 2005.

Classic Club Penguin

• Early on, it was considered that the game's moderators would take the form of polar bears, complete with their own costumes and animations. This was cut primarily because making the moderators highly visible came with its own set of problems; namely that when a moderator was around players would change their behavior or treat the mod as a celebrity, while if a moderator was noticeably absent players would be more inclined to feel like they can get away with breaking rules. The idea was partially restored when Herbert began making appearances during certain parties.
• Puffles had multiple pieces of concept art depicting them in completely different shapes, some even having legs and claws, while another one was a mustache-shaped creature with snail-like eyes. Notably, most of the concept art featured the puffles with No Mouth, which was a trait Screenhog was insistent on putting on them, but it was ultimately turned down in order to make the puffles more expressive. The version closest to the final design was gray and flew around with a propeller coming out of its head; this trait was later repurposed and reworked into the game in the form of the Green Puffles' trademark propeller hat they often use to fly around.
  • Later, the first concept art for the definitive puffle design◊ was made, but looked slightly different; it had hot pink fur (in the final game, the pink-colored puffles all have light pink fur instead), a more plumpy shape, non-conjoined eyes, eyelashes, and a differently shaped mouth.
• The space between the Pet Shop and the Pizza Parlor was originally intended to be the location of the Dojo, but the slow pace of development for the Dojo's associated content meant that spot got filled by the Stage first.
• Rockhopper was originally envisioned as a parrot rather than a penguin, and he would have had a crew of other birds.
• From 2009 to 2011, the team was working on a place named the "News Room", which would have become the new main room of the island instead of the Town. From it, players could access several other rooms on the island, visit others' igloos, and read a news board announcing important events. The room was ultimately scrapped as it was decided the Town already served its purpose perfectly fine, although many elements of it were later Refitted for Sequel for the Island Central in Club Penguin Island.
• According to Rsnail, at one point there was an idea that banned players, instead of getting entirely stopped from playing the game while they were banned, were instead going to be locked in a single-player jail cell room, which would have been located behind the Lighthouse.
• The penguin's design on the player card was originally going to be just a 2D stylized version of its in-game model, but this idea was turned down and it was replaced by a 2D drawing of a penguin. Six years later, in 2011, the team was planning to redesign the player card penguin◊; while its basic shape would be retained in order to avoid having to redraw every single item's appearance on the player card, its shapes would look smoother, and its eyes and beak were redrawn to look closer to the then-current art style. It was ultimately not implemented in the game.
• Sony was interested in purchasing Club Penguin; this ultimately didn't happen, but a cross-promotion with Surf's Up did happen as a result of those discussions.
• The first concept for the Clock Tower at the Snow Forts had it as an actual snow fort, being made entirely of snow. The clock itself was analog rather than digital, and the plaque explaining Penguin Standard Time was absent (although it was later removed in 2012 anyway, after the room was redesigned).
• There were several items that were modeled, but never made it to the game, such as an "arrow-to-the-head" hat, which was going to be the free item for the 2006 April Fools' Party but was scrapped for having been considered "too violent". Another unused item was a pink bow tie, which was made in 2006 as a way to make it easier to identify if a penguin is female (compared by Screenhog to Minnie Mouse), as back then wigs weren't on the game yet.
• Originally, some game devs were insistent on there being No Antagonist because they wanted the game to be a perfectly safe place. However, this was changed when the PSA missions were developing, as by mission three the creative team felt like it was already getting hard to come up with obstacles without there being some sort of villain behind them.
  • Even when they introduced the unidentified white fur in episode four, they still weren't sure if they were going to add a villain. If the players reacted negatively to the missions hinting at an antagonist, then the plan was to reveal that the white fur was actually a white puffle. If this had been the case, this also would have been their debut, as white puffles weren't in the game yet. However, they didn't need to go that route as players were ecstatic over the idea of a villain.
  • There were also originally going to be three polar bear antagonists with a Big, Thin, Short Trio theme. However, they felt like that was too many characters, so they molded them all into the one character of Herbert P. Bear, along with giving him a sidekick, Klutzy.
• Concept art for puffles in mini-games shows a few different ideas for their participation:
  • Green Puffles were initially considered to participate on Bean Counters, helping the player getting bags. The second idea, involving them helping collect coins on Jet Pack Adventure, made it into the game.
  • Black Puffles were considered for Cart Surfer, helping propel the player's cart forwards, and for Jet Pack Adventure, helping the player stay on air indefinitely without need to refuel. While the former idea was implemented, black puffles don't really help the player in anything and their presence is purely aesthetic.
  • There were two ideas for Blue Puffles to participate; in Hydro Hopper, where they would jump around to help give more points, and in Ice Fishing, where they would bounce on the ground to knock down crabs. Unlike the previous two concepts, neither of these were implemented into the game in any way whatsoever, and Blue Puffles never participated in any minigame.
• The storyboard for the "The Party Starts Now" began with bored human kids watching a documentary about real penguins at class, while they watched the music clip on their cellphone and ended up being sucked into it.
• The antagonist for Puffle Launch was originally be supposed to a character named "Scowly the Owl", but he was later replaced by a crab named Klepto.
• At some point after the original game's closure, the original creators of Club Penguin, Lance Priebe and Lane Merrifield, tried to buy the rights back from Disney in order to bring the game back, but Disney did not agree to it.
• For Club Penguin Rewritten:
  • The Puffle Party 2018 was originally scheduled for March 2018, but it ended up being replaced by the Waddle On Party due to the game's temporary closure at that time. After the game was relaunched, the party happened on May 2018 instead.
  • The Operation Swarm party was supposed to happen in late 2020, which never got off the ground due to not being completed in time. All that the players got in the game was a month-long rainstorm in November 2020 meant to be a lead-up to it. According to some notes, Klutzy would have been adoptable as the last prize, though Klutzy would walk around the island as a mascot the following month as compensation.
  • There were at least three upcoming parties set to happen in 2022 - Hollywood Party, Medieval Party and Western Party - which were canceled due to the game's unexpected permanent shutdown in April of that year.
  • The Rainbow Puffle was going to be implemented into the game during Pride Month of 2022, but the game's shutdown ended up happening two months prior.

Club Penguin Island

• The game had several updates planned for the future that never came to pass due to its closure in December 2018. The most notable were the addition of the puffles and Card-Jitsu, which were too hard to implement and as such, were going to be added much later into the game had it not closed down.
  • The concept art for puffles on the game shows that they were going to have a brand new evolutionary feature, starting out as eggs, then developing to babies, then normal puffles and lastly, fully evolving into animal hybrids, which would have had multiple breeds and evolutions.

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