ABSTRACT
Club Penguin was introduced in 2005 as an ad-free virtual community for kids age six through fourteen. Club Penguin was designed to be very economical in both animation costs and on-screen redraw computational power, which works on a wide range of systems. In most of the scenes in Club Penguin, whether on purpose or not, the background buildings are drawn as if they were designed for adult-sized humans, even though much shorter penguins inhabit the world. Big furniture is how kids see the world. In the Club Penguin world, with its adult-sized environment, kids can easily identify with their flippered friends. Club Penguin's design team also applied their accessibility standards to their delivery platform decisions. The Club Penguin design team created an environment where kids can feel safe trying on different roles and inventing their own themes. Over time, Club Penguin has become home to a variety of role-playing communities that have emerged organically as kids play.
