Club Penguin: Revisited

After not going on the site in about… what, nine/ten months? (Apart from the occasional rumour of a half-decent party going on.) I got a shock when I decided to log in again (I heard there was a ‘Box Party’). Firstly, there are lil ninjas running around the place (I remember going on when this came out – I was all ‘ZOMG ORANGE NINJAS JUST WHAT I ALWAYS WANTED), and some beardy dude at the Dojo (which actually has an outside!) Oh yeah, now I remember, there was like an avalanche that messed up the place. I kept owning woof at the card game. Only half-decent game on there other than Aqua Grabber. (Wootz my penguin is 725 days old! That’s like… ancient for a bunch of pixels! I’m surprised it hasn’t keeled over and died yet…)

Anyway, the first thing I noticed was… woah 31 new messages! Most was just junk, I think there was a holiday postcard from woof, some rubbish from my puffles, and a bunch of old events and ‘you’re membership will run out in 37 days’ warnings. One card was saying something about a member party in the night club. There’s two new games there. A DJ yoke and a dance signup table. It looked stupid, but it turned out my penguin was a natural at the Riverdance.

“Penguins watch in awe at the might of T67yu Nm76’s dance moves.”

After not seeing a box in sight, I went off to go cry in the pet shop. Then I noticed a little egg in the corner of the screen. After running around for a while finding more eggs I got some pink bunny ears. Oh the joy.

<—— CLICKIT!!1

Just found a party from a few weeks back. This must be that member party thing (to be honest I didn’t even know what it was – I was just taking a picture of the desk thing. You have to document things like that – you never know when a screenshot will save your life.)

And another one. (Dear God what did they do to the forest?!)

That party sucked. A free item I already got was the only thing of interest. And the pin I suppose. Didn’t bother to find it though, so…

Oh, and here’s a picture from the Stage. Check out the blue side. They used my ‘BLUES BLUES THEY NEVER LOSE!’ slogan. Maybe I didn’t make it up after all. Or maybe I did and I should be rolling on the ground going ‘OMG CP USED MY IDEA IM GONNA BECOME SO POPULAR EVEN BILLYBOB WILL BE CROWDING ME’. Either way, pretty nice picture, don’t you think?

And puffles aren’t as stupid as they used to be! Now they don’t sleep on the floor as much, and enjoy drinking from fishtanks, toilets, and stagnent pools of hot chocolate.

And there’s a new book in the book room where you can put socks on a guy. So awesome.

And look at this for an artistic puffle. That looks exactly like me.

…

So as I was saying, I got some pink bunny ears. Then I found a chocolate bunny pin on a rock somewhere.  I went to the dojo and got up to purple belt, whupping newbs left and right. And then I run into Spider880, an old friend. He doesn’t go on WordPress much anymore, but he still played CP and (I think) Poptropica. I told him about my box problem and he told me to go to an igloo on the map. I arrive there and low and behold… a box. But not any ordinary box. These were one of those April Fools boxes from some party back in 06 (and juging from the *cough* new look of this guys igloo, this year’s party too). I step into the box and….

ZHOOM! Spider then procedes to give me a tour of the box demention. Not much of a tour, though. “The tour isn’t meant to cover the box demention I’m confused…” But on the bright side, the music was ok and your snowballs go all wobbly! Then the owner of the igloo came in, and I beat him up. But when I tried to nick his box a big message popped up saying ‘members only’.

So I went off sulking. Luckily for me, I ran into a bunch of chocolate bunny penguins. One was walking… a white puffle? Damn. I wanted orange. After discovering the white puffle was a vicious as he sounded and watching him eat a bunny penguin whole, I decided to move on.

And then I found a pink bunny ninja!

After a long day making fun of people and being angry at CP, I retired to my igloo… which had turned back into a block of ice since my membership ran out. And I had to share it with 7 puffles. Woof apparently got kicked out of his house again for not paying the rent, so he decided to camp out in my basement. Whcih was removed with my membership. So now I was sharing my igloo with 7 puffles and a fat penguin thing that smelt like wet feathers and candy floss. I even had to read him a book to get him to shut up talking to the puffles all night.

Well, there you have it folks. Club Penguin is now under the control of white puffles, chocolate bunnies, ninjas and evil member boxes.

-legoless

RBS Six Nations 2009

Woot! Ireland have finally won the Grand Slam title again, after waiting 61 years. The final match, which was played against Wales in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, was a very tight match, Ireland winning just by the skin of their teeth. The score was 15-17 to Wales, 21 seconds to go, and Stephen Jones was taking a penalty from 76 feet. Luckily, the ball landed short, the referee blew the whistle, and the crowd (including most of Ireland with them) exploded into cheer. The Irish captain, Brian O’Driscoll, was named man of the match.

-legoless

Calculators Are Awesome

Calculators rock. You can do your maths homework on them. You can make random numbers on them. You can use them as fly swats. But best of all, you can chat using them! Don’t believe me? Here are some words you can type into a calculator (turn it upside-down to read them):

LEGOLESS – 55370637

HELLO – 0.7734

HI – 14

OIL – 710

HELL – 7734

SHELL – 77345

BOO – 0.08

BOB – 808

BILL – 7718

ZOO – 0.02

GILLS – 57716

LOO – 0.07

GEL – 736

IS – 51

LOL – 707

That’s all I can remember. Feel free to post your own in a comment.

Note: Make sure you add in the decimal point where needed in words that end in Os, or it won’t work.

-55370637 (legoless)

Spore Post #1 – Cell Stage

Sorry I haven’t posted since forever (why do I always start off a post like this?). My internet was down for about a week and then I just never got around to posting till now. I’m starting my ‘Spore Project’ now, because everything else I could’ve posted about is now partially or completely over.

Ok, Cell Stage is probably my favourite stage. Sadly, it’s very short, and the cells that appear in it (other than the one you’re playing as) are all made by Maxis. It’s very easy to control your cell, and navigation is even easier, as it’s in a 2-D environment and the only thing you’re looking for is food.

You start off watching a meteor tumble through Space. It crashes towards a distant planet, narrowly avoiding a flare off the sun the planet is orbiting. The meteor makes impact, sending meteorite fragments flying across the planet. Luckily for you, the one you’re hitch-hiking in lands in the sea. As it tumbles through a prehistoric whirlpool, the meteorite brakes open, revealing a very basic single-celled organism, no bigger than a piece of zoo plankton. Your cell has an eye for seeing (without one your line of vision is significantly shortened), a flagella for moving about, and either a filter mouth or a jaw (depending on what diet you chose for your cell at the beginning of the game).

There are 5 levels of cell stage in all.  Halfway through a level or after you reach a new one, your cell has a growth spurt. To evolve your cell you need to:

1. Get DNA points by eating.
2. Unlock new parts by defeating cells with the part you want, or by finding them in meteorite fragments.

There are 12 parts altogether (though I believe there used to be 24, but they were cut from the game):

Beady eye: A type of eye. Enables sight.

Button eye: Another type of eye.

Stalk eye: The worst kind of eye. (Nothing different about the sight, but it takes up space on the outer part of your cell, which could’ve been used for more useful body parts.)

Spike: An all-purpose tool. It deflects attacks, it can be used as an attack, and it can brake barriers like giant bubbles and stuff.

Flagellum: A basic propulsion part. It doesn’t do anything special other than move your cell around.

Cilia: These fin-like parts help you turn quickly in the water. When you unlock them you should immediately replace all your flagella with them, as they’re the same price, even though the cilia is superior.

Jet: Jets are the pinnacle of propulsion evolution. They’re not as smooth as the other two, but thy deliver bursts of speed, which helps you catch (or run away from) other cells.

Poison sack: Don’t add more than one of these things. They’re great at killing stuff, but your game will start to get laggy if you have too many of them.

Electric: These deliver a shock to a nearby cell when they’re fully charged. The more you have, the quicker the charge-up is.

Jaw: A carnivorous mouth. The only mouth that looks normal-ish when you walk out of the sea. (I’ve never seen an animal with enlarged micro-organism parts in real life before, have you?) It can be used as a weapon and it eats meat chunks.

Proboscis: This is an omnivore mouth. It can suck blood out of other cells and it can drink the juices from seaweedm but it can’t eat meat chunks. I guess you could use it as a weapon, as it drains cells’  health bar too.

Filter mouth: This mouth sucks in seaweed or plant particles.

Tip: To get double the food, equip a proboscis and a jaw. First, suck a cell dry. Then use a spike or your jaw to break up the corpse. Then eat the meat chunks with your jaw!

Levels:

Level 1: After emerging from your meteorite, you are surrounded by microscopic plant particles and chunks of meat. You will also come across some Minnos. If you’re a herbivore, these are competition (they eat your plant particles). If you’re a carnivore, these are lunch.

Level 1.5: After eating enough, you grow bigger. You now encounter Pokies and Goldies. If you don’t kill a Pokey, a giant Chomper will come along and do it for you. Go collect the Spike part, but watch out the Chompy doesn’t go after you! If you want to earn the Omnivorous trat in this stage, I recommend saving up DNA points to buy either a filter mouth of a jaw (depending on which one you don’t have). That way, you can stay in the blue section until you unlock a proboscis.

Level 2: Lots more cells appear. Watch out for giant Boosters! (Unless you’re gonna try your luck to unlock the jet part from one).

Level 2.5: Bigger plant particles have started to appear. You can eat the smaller parts off the outside of them. But watch out for predators! Unless, of course, you are one, in which case these things are great hunting grounds.

Level 3: Your cell is now probably around the same size as a sea monkey. Buzzies start appearing, and with them so does the Electric part. You now can eat all the outside of a large plant particle. The smaller cells won’t thank you for eating their entire food supply in one bite, though.

Level 3.5: You can now eat entire large plant particle in one bite now. Seaweed has started to appear. You are able to eat the seeds on them (which are just plant particles before they are released from the seaweed). Needle Buzzies have started to appear. These guys are twice as dangerous as the Buzzies. They charge up their electric way quicker, they’re hostile towards you, and they have a spike growing out of their mouths.

Level 4: You can eat a whole section of seeds off seaweed now. Giant bubble clusters (which are actually eggs) have started to appear. I wouldn’t hang around them – who knows what might hatch out of them.

Level 4.5: The background has turned to sand. You now encounter Maa, Paa, and the things that hatch from the eggs, Junior. If you kill a Maa, three Junior eggs appear with the meat chunks. If you don’t eat the meat, the Juniors will start feasting on their mother’s remains. Kinda creepy…

Level 5: Success! You’ve eaten enough food to grow a pea-sized brain! Your cell is now around the size of a small fish. When you’re ready to leave the water (awwww!)  and became a hideous monster with giant cell parts (don’t worry, you can get rid of them soon), click the evolve button.

Hope you enjoyed that. The Spore reviews will get more interesting as I get deeper into the gameplay, trust me.

-legoless

Edit: Oh yeah, woof wanted me to put this in the post:

Dunno why.

Happy Half A Million!

Mick’s Blog has reached half a million hits! And it only took 18 months.

I could just leave it at that, but while I’m in posting mood I guess I’ll make a really long page-stretcher with un-needed details and random pictures.

First Post:

Clickie. Yup, this is my first post. I dunno what happened to Mr WordPress… I probably deleted him.

20,000 Views:

Clickie. Not much of an achievement compared to 500,000, but still. (In case you were wondering the Club Penguin party sucked. Badly.)

Pumpkin Party:

Clickie. The only Club Penguin post I’m still proud of writing. A review of my only Club Penguin party that was worth trying to organise. I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside every time I read it.

WordPress Free Space Upgrade:

Clickie. One of the best WordPress updates ever. Without it my site would be a much blander world, and you would not see the dancing man below this.

Woof Appears:

Clickie. This is woof’s first post. (He’s an author now by the way, in case that post is misguiding.)

ZOMG WHO HIRED THAT NUB?!:

Clickie. This is Jamie’s first post.

Best. Movie. Ever.:

Clickie. Who knew randomness could be such a wonderful thing?

Half A Million Hits:

Clickie.

…

You didn’t seriously click that, did you?

Anyway, make sure you leave a comment on this momentous post so that future generations can laugh in your face and say ‘Woah, look at guy’s stupid avatar!’.

-legoless