Thin Ice
Thin Ice is an original Club Penguin song, made by Chris Hendricks. It was first original composition made specifically for Club Penguin and was also Chris' first ever professional work as a music composer[1].
The song was digitally produced and made with a KORG M1 synthesizer. It was Chris' only Club Penguin song made with the KORG M1, and it used a "98 DWGS TRI" sample from the "Waveform" bank for the synthesizer, and the sample "09 Drums #1" from the "PROG" bank for the percussion.
History[edit]
Originally, Club Penguin used exclusively licensed stock music. Chris Hendricks, who despite having a music background was primarily an animator and artist, had been tasked with finding a song that would fit the, at the time, upcoming minigame of Thin Ice, a game that mimicked the arcade style of videogames. However, Chris had a hard time finding music that suited the game. As such, he had decided it would be easier if he tried composing something instead, since he had the ability to do it. After composing the song, Chris continued to make music for Club Penguin, which led him to kickstart his career as a professional composer.
Uses in Club Penguin[edit]
The song was used in Club Penguin and played in the Thin Ice minigame. The original SWF which contained the music had the music compressed, and started by playing the intro. After the intro is played, the rest of the song would play on loop, that is, without the intro playing again.
At some point in time, the SWF of the game was updated to contain a slightly higher quality version of the game, which was for the longest the highest quality song available to the community. Despite the song being embeded into the SWF, it is unknown if it was in fact used[citation needed].
Recreation[edit]
On 22 April 2021, Chris livestreamed himself recreating the theme on YouTube, motivated by the fact that he no longer had the original files of the song. However, for this recreation, he used samples that would sound closer to how real arcade music from old video game consoles sounded like. Chris ended up not finishing or publishing this recreation, but it is still possible to watch his comments and progress on YouTube.