2015 Rewind: Islands, Events, and More!

Hey guys, Slip here.

Wow, another year has already passed. 2015 is coming to an end, and what better way to bring it to a close than to reflect and look back to all that’s happened this year?

2015, for Poptropica, is one of its awesome years. They reached a lot of milestones and new developments that made our game experience better than ever. This post is divided into three parts: the islands, the Poptropica milestones, and the PHB events.

Islands & Episodes

In 2015, we had a total of 4 new islands and 2 new episodes! From the forty thieves to space pirates to robot rulers, there was a lot for Poptropica adventurers to experience this year. Let’s take a look!

Arabian Nights Episode 2: Lair of Thieves

Poptropica started the year with releasing the second episode of Arabian Nights—one of the best episodic adventures we’ve had. It was definitely challenging, heart-stopping, and mysterious all at the same time. In this episode, everything was well done, making for an enjoyable experience. (You can check out our review here!)

Galactic Hot Dogs Island

Poptropica also launched a brand new sponsored island early on in the year: Galactic Hot Dogs. To be honest, Galactic Hot Dogs Island is one of Poptropica’s easiest islands, and its lack of challenge plus its being a sponsored island with a very contrasting art style made it rather unlikeable for many Poptropicans (in fact, it was voted Worst Poptropica Island in the PHB’s Poppies event!). Still, Poptropica brought a new island with a distinct story and a light challenge to all.

PoptropiCon Episode 3: Reign of Omegon

After releasing Galactic Hot Dogs to everyone, PoptropiCon’s concluding episode followed next. Now this was one amazing episode. Everything worked out well and Omegon played effectively as the story’s antagonist. I believe Poptropica made sure that this island would be remarkable; it definitely was one of the better ones and even inspired our April Fool’s prank this year!

Mystery of the Map Island

In May, a new island dawned on Poptropica. Based on the Poptropica graphic novel, you could say this island is a hybrid of both original and sponsored island. I enjoyed how our player is added to the plot. The downside was that the graphic novel had already been released, which meant everyone was already aware of what was going to happen. Still, the island was cool to play, and the design was well made. (Read our review of this island here!)

Arabian Nights Episode 3: Careful What You Wish For

Wishes do come true, as the ending of Arabian Nights showed us. I would consider this episode one of Poptropica’s finest works. Poptropica made everything top-notch in this episode — the story, the characters, the gameplay and even the design were all so amazing! Plus, Samhal the comedic genie gave us a lot of laughs along the way! (Read the PHB’s review here!)

Timmy Failure Island

This island isn’t a complete failure; it’s actually greater than expected! Sponsored islands have a down-factor since they aren’t an original Poptropica story, but this island defied the paradigms of the sponsored islands! From its wacky characters to its hilarious whodunit storyline, this island didn’t fail to meet our expectations. As far as sponsored islands go, this is one of the best. As a plus, it even came with a weekly giveaway! (Check out our review here!)

Escape From Pelican Rock Island

We’ve been through a lot of prisons in Poptropica. Most of the time, prison security was a joke. Not so with Pelican Rock Prison! The year ended wonderfully with this island, which brought on a unique storyline with fantastic designs, particularly of the individual characters. Poptropica clearly worked hard on this island, and I believe this is the best island of 2015. 😛 (Catch the PHB’s review over here!)

That brings us to the next part: Poptropica’s milestones of 2015!

Poptropica’s Biggest Moments

• Poptropica Realms was released to everyone.
• Poptropica released their first graphic novel, Mystery of the Map, on the web. You can read the whole thing on our Comics page!
• Poptropica Realms received a brand new update with the weather, pixies, and food items.
• Poptropica added the Arcade to the Poptropica app; bringing multiplayer in-app.
• Poptropica’s April Fool’s prank: “Poptropica: The Text Adventure“
• Poptropica hosted the Poptropica “Hall of Fame“, featuring real-life players in place of certain island NPCs.
• Poptropica Realms finally opened public sharing through Realm codes and likes.
• Poptropica tripled the number of credits you receive for finishing an island: from 50 to 150 credits!
• The Daily Pop-In commenced and gave out prizes of all kinds more credits!
• Poptropica opened Timmy Failure Island for preview and gave weekly prizes until its release.
• Home Island (aka Tutorial Island or Hub Island) made its way to desktop Poptropica.
• Poptropica celebrated their 8th Birthday with an 8-bit theme and a piggy prize.
• Poptropica also added the Photo Booth to Home Island, paving a way for more artistic minds in Poptropica.
• The Poptropica app is finally released on Amazon KindleFire!
• Poptropica held their own Halloween Photo Booth Contest. (Although we did announce ours first!)
• Poptropica made a wish come true: importing your look on the Poptropica app!
• Poptropica inaugurated their biggest giveaway: the Island Hopper Sweepstakes, featuring awesome prizes such as a blimp, membership, or even a call from Poptropica founder Jeff Kinney!

PHB Events

Look back through the parties, events, milestones, and even fan art contests! Here’s a slideshow of various PHB events we’ve had through the year:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This year was a big year for other reasons – namely a stronger reunion of the PHN.

UiPE bringing back a weekly series really helped out with inspiring the community again like Poptropican Portraits did once. Last year, HP reflected that he wanted the community to be more community centered, and in the past year we have gotten a lot of awesome community help. Trusty Biker helped out with the PHN website, Ylimegirl did a load of work on the Poptropica Wiki, and remember the fan art contests UiPE and HPuterpop held?

The Poppies was an awesome awards show – we really enjoyed seeing what you guys, the community, collectively preferred. We’re excited for next year!

We also joined forces with We-Love-Poptropica on deviantArt, the biggest Poptropica fan art community, fulfilling our goal to focus on the arts. Plus, starting in July, we picked up our Magazine series again, this time publishing The POPCORN in PDFs.

Here’s a timeline of some of our major events, too!

Wow, a lot of things have come down in one year and things have gone so fast. Time really flies when you’re having fun, eh? It’s really a great time to reflect and ponder all of the things we’ve done this year.

Looking forward to the new year, here are a couple of our next aspirations:

• A better glitch community. Free for all! (And more on the way!)
• More active viewers – PHB lurkers, start commenting more on our posts! That’s the only way we can improve. 😀

Here at the PHB, it’s our privilege to bring you the best Poptropica news as we can. Hope y’all enjoyed this year-end recap! 2016 is going to be an awesome year!

🎇 Happy New Year, Poptropicans! 🎇

~from the Poptropica Help Blog ❤