Happy Feet, the game I’ve been working on for over a year, came out a couple of weeks ago. After thinking about penguins for the past 14 months, I’m very pleased to finally see the end product on the shelves. Two weeks ago, on the night that the movie came out, we threw a fantastic wrap party, on top of Place Ville-Marie overlooking Montreal, the whole crew dressed in penguiny black and white. Our giant inflatable penguin mascot was there for the occasion as well.

As we were debating what to do with him now that the game was done, we were approached by another group who offered to buy him off us. As it turned out, our prospective buyers represented the Canadian Anti-Doping Agency. Ever since Lance Armstrong ran the New York City marathon earlier this month, I’ve been thinking about writing a post about doping in sports. I ended up renting the penguin out to them for one year in exchange for 20$ and a DVD about doping.

The next night, I went to see the theatrical release of the movie for the first time with three of my best friends. Then I came home, looked around my home office and took down all the photos of penguins, Antarctica and leopard seals collected over the past year. The year of the penguin had come to a close for me.

The odd thing is, for the past year, Happy Feet’s been my personal project most people know nothing about. Now that it’s out of my life, it’s taken a life of its own out there in the world. Now that I’m done with it, I’m starting to see it going by on buses, I see penguin-shaped treats at the grocery store, I see penguin toys at Burger King and Happy Feet lingerie at La Senza.

It’s like my little penguin’s all growns up, and it’s awesome to see him doing well in the world.

(See the movie, it’s fantastic!)