Parents

Letter to Parents

What is Camp Lizard?

Camp Lizard is a work-in-progress online social world for children all over the world to interact with each other and have fun.

How does it work?

Each player creates a lizard, gives it an identity, and explores Camp Lizard. As a social space, players can interact with each other by chatting, using emoticons, and using the world as a canvas for their imagination.

Players can earn coins by playing minigames primarily designed to simulate doing work. Using these coins, they can purchase clothing items to customize their lizard and furniture for their huts.

Who is Camp Lizard for?

Camp Lizard is for any person with an imagination, but our target audience upon launch is 8-14 year olds. Please note that during Alpha testing, our safety features may not be very well developed, as we will be focusing on making Camp Lizard run great, along with developing mechanisms to prevent cheating.

Why are you creating Camp Lizard?

Camp Lizard is a passion project inspired in no small part by Walt Disney's Club Penguin. In addition, with the decline of third spaces in the real world, the decline of kid-safe social spaces online, as well as with decreased freedom for children due to increased expectations and scrutiny towards parents, it has become more important than ever to invest in online spaces where kids can have fun and parents can breathe easy knowing there are people working day and night to keep bad guys away.

Is it safe?

While safety is our #1 priority, it's important to remember that Camp Lizard is in early development. Safety features will be rudimentary, but we are taking notes from our inspiration:

Safe Chat will allow players to type in their own messages to other users. Before any messages are sent out, a sophisticated filtering engine will ensure that nothing inappropriate will go through. Automated systems will examine the message in an effort to prevent grooming, bullying, disclosure of sensitive information, along with anything else that can make an online space unsafe.

In addition, the world is constantly moderated by humans. Any unsafe or inappropriate messages that slip through the cracks will be noticed, and the offending player may be banned. Players may also report bad behavior in order to bring a moderator's attention to it.

Ultimate Safe Chat limits what players can say to a predetermined list of messages. This prevents any bad messages from reaching your child or from being said by your child, as any such messages wouldn't even be an option.

Finally, Camp Lizard will ultimately be designed to discourage off-platform interactions. While forums, third-party blogs, and videos are popular ways for a community to interact, they unfortunately also act as vectors for unsafe individuals to target children. We will do what we can to cultivate a strong community while keeping everyone in safely moderated areas.

Nevertheless, you play a big part in keeping your kid safe online. Stay vigilant in monitoring your child's online interactions. While you may certainly allow your child to utilize third-party community resources, you should always be keeping a vigilant eye on what is happening within the community. Remember that Camp Lizard does not monitor and cannot moderate third-party websites.

Are my child's personal details safe with Camp Lizard?

Yes. Even during early development, we are committed to never collecting any more information than is necessary for Camp Lizard to function. We will have a strict privacy policy in place sometime before beta testing begins.

Does Camp Lizard cost anything?

Unfortunately, running a game like Camp Lizard is not free. However, we are committed to providing the best experience possible for free players, while also providing additional privileges to paid members. In addition, we will present additional budget-friendly ways for free players to obtain many of the same privileges that a paid member would have.

One key design feature is that no player should be able to identify who is or is not a member simply by looking at them. This was an unfortunate failure in Club Penguin that has unintentionally made non-members a target for bullying. We will always be vigilantly monitoring discussions held in-game, and identifying how bullies and other unsafe individuals are selecting targets and interacting with those targets in order to adjust our moderation tactics accordingly.

How can I follow Camp Lizard?

In the future, we will be producing an email newsletter, and there are hopes for a Camp Lizard magazine. Today, you can simply follow us on Bluesky over at https://bsky.app/profile/camplizard.com. Please note that for safety reasons, and in accordance with COPPA and Bluesky's Terms of Service, your child should not be on Bluesky. This profile is designed with parents in mind. Children should get their Camp Lizard news from the What's New blog or the Camp Lizard magazine.

How can I support Camp Lizard development?

There are several ways you can support the development of Camp Lizard.

• Camp Lizard has opened up a Ko-Fi page for crowdfunding. You may provide a one-time tip, or provide continuous support as desired.
• Camp Lizard is working using an open-source model during early development. You can find the Camp Lizard client and server over on GitHub, and share bug reports and open pull requests as desired. Please understand that at this time, Camp Lizard's client will run more like a Club Penguin Private Server. This is set to change.
• Camp Lizard can use some attention. Simply talking about this project, especially if you have a larger audience, is plenty great for boosting its potential success.

Please understand that your decision to support Camp Lizard is your own. Any transactions, code, or word-of-mouth you contribute should be treated as a voluntary donation, and does not come with any reasonable expectation of additional privileges or rewards. Nevertheless, the support is greatly appreciated. At this time, Camp Lizard is being produced by a single individual during his free time.