Club Penguin’s Puffle Bowling
For today’s Mountains Monday, I wanted to share one of the test mini-games from Club Penguin! These were games which never actually made it to the island, but they had a lot of development, and penguins could access it between 2011 and 2013 through a secret on the blog.
One of the most famous games developed was Puffle Bowling! The concept was quite simple: you’d use your mouse to dodge obstacles, a bit like Sled Racing, and at the end, you’d try to hit some bowling pins and knock them over. However, it was the idea of using puffles as a bowling ball which became quite…memorable.
Puffle Bowling 
Wii Sports Bowling (inspiration)
Although it’s become fairly iconic within the community, very little has been known about the story behind it…until now! I was very fortunate to be able to speak with Aaron Hibberd, who developed the game.
Given it was released at a point where bowling on Wii Sports had been incredibly popular throughout the world, you might not be surprised to hear that was its inspiration! However, Aaron also kindly shared the story behind the game and its experimentation.
It was inspired by the bowling game in Wii Sports that came with my Nintendo Wii! It’s one of about 30 prototype games I made with this kind of art. I would just mess around making prototypes of my ideas, experimenting and doing the art myself, and then some of them were chosen to be developed into actual games
-Aaron Hibberd
There’s something really cool about the story behind these little, and somewhat silly, games which have become iconic throughout the community. I’d like to give a massive thank you to Aaron for taking the time to answer my question, and I hope that you enjoyed this post!
Waddle on!
-Torres 126
25 Comments
Anonymous
Sounds AMAZING ! Cannot wait.hope CPR comes soon !
Anonymous
nice, wonder if it’s still accesable.
Trevchris007
Awesome post. Never knew about Puffle Bowling. Did you play it?
If it was a hit, I wonder why it never came to fruition. I also wonder if it would have been even more popular had the game been easier to access.
Would love to see Puffle Bowling in HTML5.
Torres 126
I never played it when it was accessible on the testing section, because I never knew about it until a couple of years after it was retired! However, it can still be played through the SWF: http://archives.clubpenguinwiki.info/static/images/archives/f/f7/BetaTeamPuffleBowling.swf
Psix Pengy
It makes you run adobe flash- That is gone
Torres 126
You can still download a SWF player!
Psix Pengy
A what?
Torres 126
There’s a couple of applications that still run SWFs (ShockWave Flash files) including the Puffle Bowling one!
Psix Pengy
I have no idea what that is
hhh
yay bowling with puffles
could we choose which puffle we play with or only one puffle
Torres 126
Just one puffle!
olijay2010
” INTENCE WII SPORTS THEME INTENSIFIES”
Torres 126
😀
Anonymous
“and penguins could access it between 2011 and 2013 through a secret on the blog.” Do you know if anyone actually saved it on the WayBack machine?
Torres 126
The blog is definitely saved on the Wayback Machine (the secret was clicking the signature, if I recall correctly), and the SWF is still saved: http://archives.clubpenguinwiki.info/static/images/archives/f/f7/BetaTeamPuffleBowling.swf
Anonymous
CPR finish transfering accounts. They are now just testing things.
Torres 126
Yep!
Anonymous
Hey torres! Does anyone really know who the director of the EPF is?
Torres 126
Aunt Arctic! 🙂
Anonymous
The director’s identity was revealed in operation: blackout
penagelada
Yeah! and it is on Flashpoint so it is still playable!
Anonymous
Hey torres, if you throw it backwards po penguins jump while spinning?🐧🐧🐧
Torres 126
I’m not sure I understand what you mean!
Anonymous
Its a reference to the WII sports bowling, whenever you accidentally throw the ball backwards the pople watching jump up and twirl
Torres 126
Ohh!