I’m writing this to remind myself to pinch myself. It’s easy to take things for granted sometimes. Do you keep a gratitude journal at all? I know I personally need to get a bit better at writing down what I’m grateful for, so I’m doing that here today in blog format.
We recently spun up an internal wiki at Digital Daylight to help the team share knowledge with each other. I was writing up a quick document to document the journey of going from the initial Party Parrot World map sketch in my notebook to the final (absolutely beautiful) execution from Weremagnus and the team at SkyVu! It was such a great reminder of how far we’ve come in less than a year. I really can’t wait for the rest of the community to see what we’ve been working on.
My first pencil sketch was back in October 2021 when I was trying to figure out what the world map could look like for the Party Parrot World and how to map it all to our awesome elemental system.
How did I get to do this? I’m not even sure. Sometimes fate has a strange way of revealing itself when you take the right actions. All I know is that I’m so grateful for Lance believing in me and empowering me to dream up a new world with the community. And I hope you are getting to reap the benefits of that in some small way, too.
I am so grateful for the amazing community that continued after the demise of Club Penguin. As a dad, it’s been so encouraging to watch the community grow into their careers, and I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to provide a limited number of opportunities for some of them to work on the Party Parrot World.
It’s so awesome to see all the parrot outfits coming to life thanks to Ymuy! What started as a total fart joke of an idea is now turning into these real 3D avatars walking around a 3D world. In many ways I’m not even sure how it happened (even though I know perfectly well haha)
I also can’t help but admire the dogged determination and grit of Tech70! They’ve been so amazingly helpful, and I’m actually secretly grateful that we took a break on the Moose & Polo Show because it gives me (and them!) the opportunity to help build up our documentation and backlog of features!
I’m also quite thankful that people have managed to work through the record-breaking heat in the UK and Europe! I had to bug Freyja for some asset help, and she was gracious enough to turn requests around swiftly for us, which was such a huge help. And check out this awesome work-in-progress of the Pizza Dojo, now in color! Thanks for working on this for us, Freyja!
I hope everyone is doing as okay as possible during the heatwave! It’s been absolutely nuts.
I’m also so grateful for the help of some seriously experienced professionals like Screenhog and Weremagnus for all their help! Amanda has been a godsend, transforming our crazy laundry list of ideas into real, actionable, and beautiful pieces of art. The Party Parrot World benefits from her crazy amounts of experience and expertise! She can draw from all her experience on Club Penguin, Club Penguin Island, and World of Warcraft (amongst others!) for our humble little project, and the parrots are absolutely all the better for it. Her talents amaze me.
Sometimes I think about the unfortunate demise of Club Penguin Island. I know that team had so many dreams for that product, and it’s a little sad it had to be cut short. It honestly wasn’t really a world for me, but I do care about the people who worked on that product and the community who did love it. So I’m grateful that Weremagnus has been able to put a little twist of CPI into the parrot world art. And I’m even more grateful that PPW feels like its own unique thing. Sure, the parrot world has some elements of the past, but my goal is to make sure those little nostalgic elements are tasteful. Like I said — 80% new, 20% comfy is the goal!
Today I playtested the latest dev build with Lance, and it’s so exciting hearing the 5 amazing variants of the main Kakapo Island theme thanks to Screenhog. Chris has such an amazing gift for composition, and I’m so grateful that he’s taken the time to support our little project, too. Especially since he’s such a busy dad!
And speaking of music, it’s such a privilege to have Dialga22239 flexing their musical muscles for the project, too! Most of their tracks are in the mini-games, and I can’t wait for peeps to hear some of their new songs, like “Save the Eggs!”
Most of all, I am thankful for those of you following along with the project. Philosophically, I’m making my best effort to make the Party Parrot World a community-driven project, listening to feedback from the good eggs out there. Now that we’re getting into a crunchier phase, we’re going to be a bit more “nose to the grindstone” as they say.
Our goal is to launch in November in alpha or beta. Truth be told, we will likely have to launch before we’re ready, and keep iterating as we go. Thanks for supporting us and telling others about the project! Each little bit of support helps a lot. We appreciate you helping us to shape a new virtual world that parties like it’s 2007-2012!
Yours truly,
Polo