I can't really give this a star rating, so square in the middle it is, but it was kind of my entire childhood. Like, I had a genuine addiction to this game. Every second I was allowed on the computer I was on Habbo.

I can't pinpoint how old I was when I started playing - my older niece let me take over her account, so it says it was made in 2006, but I was probably around 8 or 9 when I started playing which would be 2008-2009ish. The way Habbo felt back then is indescribable. It was small, cozy, pre-UK/US hotel merge so everyone kind of knew everyone when it came to the active players. I'd go into a public room and have people saying hi to me because they recognised me from the forums. It was genuinely such a warm and friendly and welcoming atmosphere.

It kind of started going downhill after the merge, but it took a while. I remember people protesting the merge because we didn't want the stinky Americans in the same hotel as us, and that shit was absolutely reciprocated - I remember going into a room and having two Americans ask me which country I was from, and when I said the UK they banned me. Shit was real back then. With the additions of VIP club on top of Habbo Club, the change in the interface and font/text bubbles, the updates, it all grew more shallow and corporate over the years, and it lost that homely feeling it had.

I've tried to go back to it a few times, but it's a completely different website now. Impossible to navigate, completely dead and inactive, features closed off behind paywalls. It's a shame, because I'd love to re-experience classic Habbo again with an active userbase.

But still, I was there for "the pool is closed", I was there for "bacon hair", I was there for Cozzie Change and Falling Furni, I was there for the casinos filled with thrones and dragons, I was there for the structured careers, I was there for the introduction of pets(!), I was there for the forum games and "Rags to Riches" stories and parkour mazes.

It'll always be special to me, even if I can never recapture it.

Oh, and this game taught me what "cum" was, because I tried to say "cum here" as a kid and it censored me so I looked it up. Classic.