Club Penguin
Club Penguin has been big in the news lately with Disney purchasing them for a hefty sum. So lets take a look.
It is primarily a over glorified mini-game selector with a small addition of a confusing chat room. The mini-games are fairly simple and lead you to acquiring gold which eventually becomes a grind. After some time you can buy interesting toys and show them off to others. During all of this there are sections where you can chat with other members and it appears as a bubble over your head.
There are various things that I would change for Club Penguin. The chat is confusing, as there is so much going on in one area that it becomes hard to parse who is saying what. The interaction areas are not well defined (you can walk your penguin around an area and trigger a game accidentally because there is no clearly defined trigger area). The way the interface is designed, you can barely get across simple ideas with the amount of space you are allowed to type.
The avatars are so similar looking that it becomes hard to distinguish between people. That coupled with the problem that each area is extremely crowded and each avatar can take up the same space so you end up with overlapping penguins.
I can see how this appeals to kids showing off their toys to other friends but feel that it is a fairly shallow experience.