Hey Poptropicans, and welcome back to our new “Pop Places IRL” series! Here, I’ll be walking you through some of Escape From Pelican Rock Island’s most notable scenes and comparing them to those scenes in real life (IRL).
You may already know this if you’re very familiar with California (or have read our trivia on the Escape From Pelican Rock Island Guide), but Pelican Rock is based on San Francisco (or “Bay City”), and more specifically, its famous Alcatraz island prison.
Even though the prison is no longer up and running IRL today, visitors can still take a tour of the island located in San Francisco Bay (if you can withstand the strong smell of pelican feces). When it was still in operation, the facility was well known for being impossible to break out of, though I guess our Poptropicans proved that wrong!
Once you’re arrested, you get to visit many important places inside the prison, including the yard. If you thought it was a pretty dull way to spend your time in game, I’m sorry to tell you that the IRL prison recreation yard isn’t any more dazzling.
Aside from your recreation time behind bars, meal time makes up a big portion of our Poptropicans’ adventures. While photos of Pelican Rock’s cafeteria aren’t in black and white, the IRL prison cafeteria may just have better food!
The last main location you often visit while at Pelican Rock (besides the plate making room, which shows a very common jail trope) is, of course, your cell. Poptropicans may have it a bit better space wise, but it’s cool to see that even the green walls match up with the IRL prison cells.
Another big landmark on the island in game was the “Colt Tower” that you chase Booted Bandit up. IRL, this location was based on San Fran’s Coit Tower, a tourist destination aside from Alcatraz!
A spot that I’m obligated to mention is of course San Fran’s famous Golden Gate Bridge! Though not a huge destination in game, the bridge can be seen in the background multiple times along your adventure and is a staple in the city’s skyline.
Well, that wraps up our tour of real-life Escape From Pelican Rock! What did you think?
Have you been to San Francisco? How does it compare to Poptropica’s interpretation? I’ve actually been on an Alcatraz tour and think the resemblance is pretty cool! What other places do you want us to cover in this series?
If you liked this post, be sure to smash that like button check out our real-life tour of Crisis Caverns Island too! 🙂
~SD
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This is so interesting xD awesome job keep it up
Great inside look — thanks, SD! 😀
I actually did not know that the island Escape from Pelican rock was based off a real place. Thanks to this blog post. Now I know!
I just wanted to point out how the events seen in the island is loosely based on the June 1962 Alcatraz escape:
– The escape attempt involved twins breaking out of prison, similar to the twins on the island.
– It also included the dummy heads as a decoy to escape the guards making rounds that night.
– How the spoons were used to take out the vent was similar to the island as well.
– Also, the archaic translation of pelican is “alcatraz”; hence the name of the island’s prison, hehe.
-There are so many more similarities, but please check out Buzzfeed Unsolved or its Wikipedia page!
However, the end of the real Alcatraz escape is still unknown; no one knows whether the inmates lived, but it’s still one cool mystery to revisit while playing Escape from Pelican Rock! 🙂