PHB Quickie: “Survival: Hook, Line, and Sinker” Overview

Hi Gs,

Survival Episode 2: Hook, Line, & Sinker is now my favorite episode out of the two (3’s overview later :P). It has an awesome atmosphere, an interactive environment, and ominous story development that we’ll talk about later. You can check out the last overview for Survival here, or view the PHB’s Guide for both episode 1 and 2 of Survival!

There’s definitely a difference between the two episodes, but the one thing I like best about this one is the correlation. It really makes the environment different from the last episode, yet seamless and politically correct. I know, you’re probably asking When has Poptropica ever been politically correct, but to my surprise, it’s being just that! The episode starts with you climbing down the same cliff that you could jump off of in the first episode. The log that you could push off the cliff in the first episode is awaiting you at the bottom.

There’s also a new layer of interactivity that has been sort of dying off over the years. When I say interactivity, I mean a clickable adventure, with animations when you click stuff. Compared to other recent islands, this one has a surprisingly higher amount. And by the way, this type of clickable idea was inspired by Humongous Entertainment, an old game making company which helped foster my love of Poptropica. In fact, Poptropica is sort of following in that company’s footsteps in a lot of ways.

As for the soundtrack, again, Jeff Heim is amazing, but other than that the tracks are sort of following in the episode’s footsteps. These episodes are entirely experimental, and I don’t expect too many of them to be released, or for islands to become extinct — remember Arabian Nights Island, scheduled to come out later this year?

The story isn’t revealed completely, it just teases the viewer — in the awesome outro scene for the island, a camera hidden in the trees zooms out, and a silhouetted figure is shown watching you and the rest of the island from a panel of screens. From here, we already know what the plot is, but I really like how unique the story telling in this island is — MA doesn’t have cut scenes, and Survival is one of the first to use them as a main part of the game play.

Anyway, that’s just my Bitcoin. 😉 I rate this episode 4.5 out of 5 — not only does it have an awesome story, but it also has continuity that surprised me.

-HPuterpop