Did you know, for every 365 (or 366, if you are freaky) days, a year passes? I did not know this until I looked in a mirror and saw myself becoming older. Anyway…
Happy New Year Penguin Gamers and Terrarians alike!
2023 has been a fun year, albeit with less hotfixes from Re-Logic to deal with (so sad). Looking back, we accomplished a lot in the past year, so as it is with yearly tradition, let us go back in time and reflect on everything amazing 2023 brought us. In other words, this is your Penguin Games Wrapped.
Table of Contents
Click on the section to jump to it!
Server Recap
Thankfully, no major update released on Terraria, giving us plenty of time to fix bugs, add content, and refine older systems! Check out the highlights!
As a reminder, the latest information can be found on the Discord server, blog, and by being on the server.
The era of the editor has ended - all games have been ported to C#!
Some of you may remember the old gamemode editor, others may not. So for all of you who are wondering what the heck the editor even was, we have you covered!
The editor was basically an old system that allowed for moderators to work on gamemodes for the server. This is how we have some of the games on the server now! Prime examples of this are games like Tank Wars, Hunger Games, and even the Penguin Party microgames!
A few years back we discontinued the editor’s usage due to a lot of scope creep with how many work-in-progress games we had. A lot of them were also filled with bugs (looking at you TS:PR!).
Over the past few years since we shut it down, the developers have been porting all editor games that we want to keep off of it into C#. We are happy to say that we’ve reached the point where we have fully discontinued the editor.
What does this mean for the future? Well, it allows for more focus on updating games rather than continuing to endlessly port games to a new language. It also means that eventually we may bring out some new ideas for games. Stay tuned!
In August, we saw the addition of Weekly Challenges to the server. Each week, there is a new objective focusing on a different gamemode or part of the server. Completing those objectives will give you even more Penguin Points!
Some challenges are the staple “Do X amount of tasks,” and others are a bit more unique. Overall, stay tuned for next year’s onslaught of challenges!
Remind me what again? Reminders are here?
Surprise! As a small holiday present, we released a valuable features for those who are crazy over certain gamemode (Looking at you Spleef players): The /remindme command! Now, you can be notified ASAP whenever a lobby opens up for your favorite gamemode. Players are officially obligated to have no life!
The beginning of 2023 saw the official launch of the Penguin Games blog. As part of an ongoing project to migrate information off of the Discord server, the blog was created to not only spread propaganda, but also to keep all important updates in a public place, not locked behind a login screen or some annoying navigating through a server.
Since then, we have posted many blog posts, ranging from events, gamemode updates, and general stuff! And we will keep this trend going in 2024 and beyond!
In terms of the most exciting boring updates, the release of the new Mapedit documentation takes the prize for this year. For those who remember, our Mapedit documentation relied on the classic Google Docs. The problem? The Mapedit documentation relied on the classic Google Docs. It was clear there needed to be a migration.
Thus, the new Mapedit Documentation was born! This made it much easier to split up information into pages, and even build some new information sources! The convenience only gets easier!
A reminder: If you are interested in building awesome maps for the awesome gamemodes on this awesome server, consider applying for Mapedit!
April Fools! Artificial intelligence has taken over the server!
As is tradition here, we at Penguin Games love doing a bit of tomfoolery on April Fools day. And this year really showed the true horrors artificial intelligence would have on the world!
To “combat hate speech,” we implemented an AI that would turn those negative statements into something more positive! This worked for a time, until the bot went rogue, causing the chat to go from piratey, to sussy, to ye olde English, to Bri’ish, and so many other variations, until finally: OwO.
Yes, the AI got that cursed, so we had to do what had to be done: Shut it down. We vow never to unleash this technology onto the world again, because who knows how more cursed things could get?
Games got updated again and again!
What would Penguin Games be without games? Just Penguin, apparently. Across 2023, we saw love given to many games, ranging from new maps, balancing, new features, and so on! Check out the highlights:
Class Wars
- What’s this?! A Class Wars lobby revamp?!
- 6 new community made classes.
- 2 new community made maps.
Parkour
- Celebration of the Seasons! All seasonal lobbies are built!
- Spring!
- Summer!
- Halloween! (or in non Spooky terms, Autumn)
- Winter!
- 19 new maps total, including two Grandmasters for all the pros!
- Tons of new par times.
Penguin Party
- Democracy comes to Penguin Party: You can now vote for what micro-game to play next.
- Dozens of maps and segments added to microgames.
Capture the Gem
Spleef
Survival
Players vs. Environment
And a lot more!
Including a labour of love update of our own filled with lots of quality of life additions.
Anyways, trying to fit everything in this blog post is an impossible task.
Soooooo, the next best thing then would be joining the server to find out all the things we are cooking.
Server IP: penguingames.fun
Server Port: 7777
Community Recap
Who could forget about the Penguin Games community?! Hopefully not the Penguin Games community… here are the highlights!
In 2018, the first Capture the Gem League was run… now, five years later, the second one happened! For real!
This summer-turned-to-fall event was a big competition amongst the best of the best. Teams fought and sought to be number one in CtG history. And by the end, the victors were crowned! Congratulations to [place holder] for securing the W.
Of course, while running a tournament sounds easy on paper, in hindsight it is so much more work than expected. We understand the frustrations and difficulties we had during the tournament. Likewise, we have taken a lot into account for how to approach future events similar to this… stay tuned…
Special thanks to Re-Logic for sponsoring some of the prizes for this tournament!
We had the absolute pleasure of having a question and answers event occur directly on the official Terraria Discord server! Some admins took the time out of their days and answered thought-provoking questions such as…
What’s the best chips?
Coca cola or pepsi?
Unlimited bacon and no games or unlimited games but no games?
And more! It was an absolute blast interacting with many people, even if some questions were less desirable than others…
Special thanks to the Terraria Discord server for hosting this Q&A!
Check out the Q&A session: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Jt3dK0VJTd8Kjr2VuzkjCTHAZWp4hUD-vNHhTmJOG5I
When the events are eventing! 😁
This year, many, many, many, many, many events were held. And many, many, many, many, many winners were announced! Check out the highlights!
We hope to see you participate in all the events we have in store in the new year!
Boring statistics 3: Because we can count even higher!
Wow! Look at those crazy numbers!
- Over 100 implemented suggestions from the Discord server.
- Hundreds of new community made maps and builds added to games on the server.
- A year filled with over a dozen events! Vanity contests, building challenges, tournaments and everything in between.
- 600+ hosts or so, counting them all would take too long.
- 30 polls, ranging from serious to silly.
- Hundreds of announcements between the community and the server.
- A lot more bans, as per usual.
- Less than 10 hotfixes from Re-Logic to deal with…
Future Plans
Our number one goal every year is to ensure that you – the player – is having fun. And as with every year, we are aware of the general decline in players from this year. A 24/7 Terraria server is not exactly the most popular thing in the world, and while Terraria is one of the most popular games in the world, the love for multiplayer is not the same love people have for something like Modded Terraria. We are hoping that changes though with the upcoming release of Crossplay in Terraria! The world of multiplayer Terraria is bigger than most people might expect…
As for future plans, we cannot exactly tell you what we work at a moment’s notice – we like to keep secrets too! But, what we can tell you is that new stuff is being actively worked on. Some of it is exciting, other stuff is a bit more boring. Regardless, definitely keep an eye out for news as it rolls out.
TL;DR: We are making stuff.
Wow! Penguin Games is really cool! How can I get involved?
Great question! Here are some pointers:
- Play on the server!
- Vote for the server on terraria-servers to boost visibility: https://terraria-servers.com/server/1728/.
- Support server costs on Patreon and get some sweet perks: https://www.patreon.com/PenguinGames.
- Volunteer! Whether if you want to moderate, coordinate events, help with game changes, build, develop for the server, we are always looking for people.
- Join the Discord server! This is the best way to keep in touch with the Penguin Games community: https://discord.gg/penguingames.
- Talk about it! But like, in a cool way that does not make you sound like a nerd…
Yearly Thanks
Thank you to everyone who plays on Penguin Games! Whether you are a regular, a frequent visitor, or just checking it out once in a blue moon, thank you for joining the server. Especially, thanks to the people below who help make Penguin Games happen!
Developers:
- Anzhelika
- ASgo
- GameRoom
- Killia
- fdsa
- NerdyPi
Managers:
- Aquamarine
- Rosette
- Squid
- Toasty
- D3f3ct
Moderators:
- aljd
- Alviss
- BonkBa
- Brud
- Chris Yu
- Dekay21
- Dundershock
- EvilCorwin39
- Hassaan
- Indra
- In the clouds
- G1
- John
- Juxta
- Laresa
- Lightiey
- Luma
- Marionet
- Megaswave
- Moho
- Nelpas
- RougeX
- Tcalfer
- Thunderbolt33
- Uncle Jimbo
- vl.3.4.4
- Yoshachobi7
- 1,618033988749894848
- RaidMax21
Apply for Event Coordinator: https://forms.gle/2FWNhPj2V5Q9wukz8
- christh30ne
- Epicdoge
- for them worthy
- Octaviano
- pwrwq
- Rite
- Speedrunner
- x-ash-x
- 0su
Apply for Server Builder: https://forms.gle/4QhxdXW4wbsAGtFj6
- a skrub
- Aley with the ale fairy
- AliYNWA
- Atlas
- AzureVermeil
- Azzurala
- BlueJay T Gaming
- CherrY
- Fire
- Flambo
- Kenyo
- Khaios
- kostya57462
- Larde
- Meta
- Neo
- Pavloydus
- Penumbra
- POIU
- Shady Figure
- Tree
- yoshiwa
- Aley the ale fairy
- Assorted
- claret
- Garmon
- Meta
- Mr_Oinky
- Mylazt
- POIU
- Ravenwing
- Retax
- Spiderman2
- Re-Logic for creating Terraria.
- Pryaxis for creating TShock.
- Listforge for their Terraria Server List API.
- BinaryConstruct for creating TEdit.
- Mapmakers who design maps via Mapedit.
- Patrons who financially support server costs.
- Voters who support the server on terraria-servers.com.
- You – the community – for playing on the server.
Server IP: penguingames.fun [Port: 7777]
Terraria Server List: https://terraria-servers.com/server/1728
Discord: https://discord.gg/penguingames
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/PenguinGames