Clueless about your competitors?
Check out our Reality TV: Wild Safari Island Guide.
Hello, Poptropicans, and welcome to the jungle! 🌴
It’s been three years since Poptropica Original has gotten an island, and a year since Poptropica Worlds did. But we’re pleased to finally welcome Reality TV: Wild Safari to the Poptropica map, and to share our thoughts on this latest adventure that’s a sequel to the original Reality TV Island released in 2010. From people to places to plot, we’re going to cover it all. Let’s go!
Be warned: This review contains spoilers!
Storyline & Characters
As far as the story goes… well, there really wasn’t much on that front. You arrive on the set of the reality TV show and immediately get to jump into the games. Unlike the original Reality TV Island, there’s no build-up to get you there: no washed-up TV star to deliver pizza to, no dreaming about making it out of a rundown town—really, no story, conflict, or scandal about what has transpired between the last season from nine years ago to now.
But the TV set itself has some fun elements, too. There’s a base camp for the show crew that doubles as a common room, monkeys handling cameras, and even the iconic bonfire from the original RTV — and set in a wild safari that looks a little different from the previous season.
The challengers you compete with are really where the island shines most. In addition to a handful of familiar characters from various Poptropica islands (Ringmaster Raven, Scherazade, and Omegon among them), we also meet lots of new celebrity parodies with hilarious names.
Some of our favorites are Shett and Blinked, based on YouTube comedians Rhett and Link; Baby Googoo, based on singer Lady Gaga; and Mandy Screams, based on YouTube personality Miranda Sings. Read more about who’s who in our Reality TV: Wild Safari Island Guide trivia!
Gameplay
As far as gameplay, we basically have three mini-games to look at: Spear Throw, Deep Dive, and Cheetah Run, all of which make up the majority of the island experience.
Though placed in new settings, each of these challenges are actually quite familiar, sharing similarities to other island or ad mini-games. For example, the spear throw borrows mechanisms from Poptropolis Games’ archery event. A bit unoriginal, but fun nonetheless.
That being said, a unique gameplay element that Wild Safari brings to the table is the option to change the difficulty level. This isn’t always an option for us, and is actually quite useful to those players who may struggle with certain gameplay challenges. In fact, selecting your difficulty level has been built seamlessly into the island’s dialogue, aiding in our immersion to the whole experience. You can also win about 5–60 credits for playing all the games, depending on the level you selected and your performance!
One other thing that’s different from the original RTV is that no matter the end results, you’ll win the island medallion. You could come in dead last and TV show host Jim Probably will still give it to you with the assurance that “it’s a Poptropica thing.” While it’s nice not to have the frustration of being voted off the show when you’re down to the final round, as can happen in the original, this new setup feels too easy — after all, you’re literally receiving a participation trophy (or medallion, as it were).
Visuals
As usual, Poptropica’s scenery is beautiful. The safari setting meets our visual expectations, despite there not being a whole lot of scenery to begin with. Perhaps this island isn’t as breathtaking as others, but we’ve got no clear complaints about the aesthetics. Plus, how can we resist some cute animals?
“Washed Up” newspaper references old Reality TV hero Bucky Lucas. 
Monkeys on the camera crew are a new fixture on this sequel island.
The interactable elements at our base camp are pretty fun, too. From spooking a camera-woman to, well, spooking a zebra, there are many clickable objects and easter eggs to discover. In particular, we enjoyed the small tribute to old Reality TV hero Bucky Lucas on the beach shore, and the monkeys managing cameras and celebrating winners with drums.
Little additions to an island such as these bring a bit of life to the experience, even though they may not have a huge impact on the gameplay.
Verdict
Considering all of these elements that the island has to offer, our final rating for Reality TV: Wild Safari Island is…
Does this Reality TV experience live up to its predecessor? Maybe not… Was it still enjoyable? Sure thing! Sequels often fall short of expectations, and are commonly labeled as unoriginal. Then again, Greek Sea Odyssey Island successfully brought new Mythology features to the table, and we think the Creators could have delivered better story here, too. Wild Safari simply lacked the substance found in the original.
Still, the island had its charming components. The safari had excellent humor, visuals, references, and dialogue to say the least. Even the mini-games were pretty fun! And that’s why this island gets a 2 out of 5 baby hippos from us.
Thanks for reading our review of Reality TV: Wild Safari Island! How does this adventure compare to the preceding Reality TV Island? Do you agree with our verdict? Share your opinions in the comments below!
– 🦛 the PHB team 🦛 –
🏝 Poptropica Help Blog 🗺 
I just played this island today, and I’m not impressed.
First off, you don’t get to do the fun little things like calling Pete’s Pizza or mailing the application. You automatically arrive at the set. I really enjoyed the little things in the beginning of the original island. When the screen got dark and said “the next day” it made little me feel very excited and gave length to the island (it didn’t just happen in one day). The beginning scenes were very unique and made the island feel like an actual island with a story instead of a compilation of mini games.
The new island was very beautiful, and I loved the animated animals and video crews. But the actual game show? Nah. First off, you can’t even play with all the contestants. In the original you could, which made the island longer since you had to wait for everyone else to get eliminated. Short islands are cool, but long islands are what we have been wanting for a very long time. Also.. there was no elimination?! That was a very cool feature in the original. Even if you were very close to winning you could still lose! In the new version, a win is almost guaranteed since it wast even that difficult and you were only playing with 3 other people.
I did like how you could choose the difficulty level, but like your post said, the mini games were unoriginal. In the og island there were TONS of mini games, so many that you might not even play all of them after competing the show once. I wish that was a feature in the new one. The characters were funny but this island really is lacking. It’s short, has no elimination, barely any characters to compete with, little dialogue, no fun intro scenes, and it was unoriginal and very easy to complete.
I love poptropica with all my heart, but come on! After a long time of waiting for a new island, we unfortunately still didn’t get a new creative island. The recent ones were all short and easy to complete. What happened to the creators that made the past islands like Astro Nights, Wild West, Virus Hunter, Ghost Story, Vampires Curse, etc???
I respect the creators and I’m sorry if this was offensive in anyway..
I do love your post btw!
I couldn’t agree with you more! Reality TV was one of my favorite islands because it never got boring. You could replay the show as many times as you wanted, and no matter how well you did in the challenges, the other contestants could still eliminate you. It never got stale to me, because the outcome always changed!
Yes! Exactly! I know the creators are busy but we don’t care about flashy ads, fun store items, changes to the friends page, music, and even pets
We 👏 just 👏 want 👏 a 👏 good 👏 new 👏 island
Agreed! How come the older islands were so good, but the new aren’t ever as interesting or exciting, or as creative and extended. I do agree with the PHB’s rating. 2 out of 5 baby hippos is definitely this island in my opinion. I like the way you can interact with the animals how you can earn credits by playing (There’s not a lot of sources of credits these days, so that island would be helpful), but with no storyline, a decreased number of games, and having a medallion given to you, I just can’t call it a real island. There should never be an island where you get the medallion for nothing, whether you win or lose the game. If you had no skill and was bad at every game, then why should they give you the medallion? The creators can do better than this. I know it. The older islands were so great! Where did all that talent go?
Quite frankly, I’d give this a 3/5. It is nice looking, But let’s talk about the mini games.
I don’t have many comments on the target one except that it’s kinda easy.
I don’t have many comments on the diving one either.
The cheetah race though was kind of
. Some of the touch boxes on the animals are kind of weird (how do I jump over that hippo??). And the tree obstacle threw me off a bit since you gotta jump through the branch and under the bird. There wasn’t much indicating that. (the ads causing the lag didn’t help much.)
Over all, I pretty much lost, and I’m just as confused as my avatar on why I got a medallion anyway. I was kind of annoyed how the previous islands weren’t as much in quality as their predecessors, but this is just kind of a “meh” island in my opinion. The characters and the attention to the details of the scenery are nice. But they could have done better in the game play and perhaps story department in my opinion.
The animal hit-boxes are all kind of off, but, unlike the other contestants, you are able to triple jump. I would recommend doing that over all of the oncoming obstacles. 😉
After over a year of no islands, you’d think they would put out a well developed island to make up for all the inactivity. I was pretty disappointed. They can do better than this