Ask the Joker #1: Relatives, island releases, and design reliances 🃏

Ask the Joker is a Q&A segment here on the PHB where you, dear readers, are invited to send in your Poptropica questions to have them answered, with wit, wisdom, and wisecracks, by one Incredible Joker.

Welcome to the first set of questions in this new PHB series, Ask the Joker! Many of you wrote in with your Poptropica questions, and now— *adjusts goggles* —I shall be offering my sage advice.

If you do not see yours in this post, do not worry — I am saving all submitted questions and they may be answered in the future. Now, onto your pressing questions, and my rambling amazing answers! 😂

Guessing by your name and appearance, are you related to Lucky Joker and/or Dr. Hare? ~Gentle Dolphin

I am not related to Lucky Joker as far as I am aware (unless… long lost relative? 😮). As for Dr. Hare, I guess that would be a hare-y situation to explain. So instead I will just play it by ear and hop onto the next question! 🙃👍

When do you think there will be a new island? ~EvilGirl31

I suppose that we’ll be waiting a while, as they just last week announced Goofball Island, the second winner of the Dream Island contest (out of who knows how many?). Before that, there is also Fairy Tale Island, planned for sometime in this year according to their announcement. Meanwhile, they’re also working on porting the old classic islands over to Haxe, so that may see more progress in 2021.

They may release a few old islands first to keep people happy until the new ones are ready. They have the content of their old islands — it’s just a matter of getting them on the new Haxe system. Maybe we’ll get a few in early to mid 2021? Just speculating, though. And Fairy Tale Island, being a brand new island, is probably going to take more time to create — but still in 2021, if all goes as scheduled.

Either way, we should have something coming to help our impatience! 😂😛 Of course, even then, I will probably be procrastinating on completing it myself… 😅

What inspired the art and design for Poptropica? ~Shantelle W.

This one was not easy to find, and I’m still researching it a bit, but here’s some stuff you may find fascinating! Here’s a Q&A with Poptropica artist Abigail Grigg, which talks a bit about art styles and inspirations. Abigail’s advice? “Experiment and try new stuff!” You never know where you might dream up the next big idea.

And check out the PHB’s Poptropica Yearbook for 2007, which includes some fun pics of Poptropica’s early concept art before the game was even created. According to Poptropica’s founder, Jeff Kinney, Poptropica’s first concept was “an enormous map of single-scene rooms,” but it took a competitor making a game with a similar name as Poptropica’s working title, “Poptropolis,” for them to switch gears and start thinking about islands, the format we know and love today.

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That’s it for the very first Ask the Joker! Bring on your questions and I’ll see you in the next one. And quick thanks to Slanted Fish for letting me have the freedom to write 😂😜 and for her editing! 😅

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How can you send in your questions to Ask the Joker?

That’s a great question! You can use the following methods:

• 📧 Send an email to justaskthejoker (at) gmail (dot) com. This way, you’ll get to keep your questions a surprise when they get answered on the blog.
• 💬 Comment on the latest Ask the Joker post. Your questions will be publicly visible before they appear in a Q&A post, but this allows others to interact with your question if they so choose. If you don’t have an email address, you can enter a fake one in the email field when you post your comment.

See you all next time, and remember: You can’t spell Poptropica without letters.