My Place in Poptropica: Silver Shell

This is a guest post from Silver Shell sharing her My Place in Poptropica story, which is all about one’s Poptropica journey. Enjoy!

Hi! I’m Silver Shell, and this is my first post on the PHB. I’m going to show you my MPIP, My Place in Poptropica.

The Great Discovery

The year was… actually, I don’t know when the year was. I must’ve forgotten. Huh. Sorry if any of you wanted the year.

It was the middle of summer. I had nothing else to do, so I was on my computer, playing a bunch of uncool math games on Cool Math Games. I was scrolling, and I saw a picture of some lady with aviator’s goggles, a hat, and a jacket. She looked kind of like Amelia Earhart, actually — just missing some key ingredients like, I don’t know, a nose and ears. Since I was fascinated by aviation back then, I thought the game looked cool.

Then there was the name. Poptropica. How do you pronounce it? I had no idea. For a few days, I walked around calling it “pop-TROPE-ee-kay”.

Anyway, I Googled the game to see if search engines thought it was any good. Fun? Okay. Communicating safely? Why not? Educational…Oh. No. That ain’t gonna work. See, I was kind of sick of games where they’re all like “What’s 5 times 5? Good job! You’ve unlocked a pet!” and stuff like that. Regardless of that, I was curious, so I clicked.

And behold, the beginning of an era.

Playing the Game

I was welcomed by some pink rabbit with goggles standing on a floating island (little did I know I would see stranger things than that!) with a bunch of stuff flying around in the background. After spending maybe twenty minutes just staring at the screen to see what would fly around in the background, I finally clicked “new player.”

After creating my avatar to look as much like me as possible, and talking to the girl in the goggles and jacket (who was actually named Amelia, after the aviator!), I went on my first quest, to a creepy-looking, kind of run-down island called 24 Carrot.

I’ll admit, back then I didn’t quite understand how the islands worked. I thought if I refused the quest, there would have to be something else to do. I thought I was really on a time limit. 

After winning, I received something I would never forget. It was such an important symbol of my achievement and duty as a Poptropican…

My first medallion. *cue the hallelujah chorus*

The Old New Poptropica

I played Poptropica almost every day for a long time, but after a while, I realized that things weren’t changing. I wished for something new every day. I was coming to a scary suspicion that the creators were giving up on their own game. I checked the Pop Creators’ Blog nonstop, but nothing. I stopped playing for a while. I had to focus on school, anyway.

That all changed one day in 2020, when I decided to check the Creators’ Blog again for the first time in months, and I saw something amazing, something mysterious, something I had never seen before, and it was titled: Classic Islands are Baaaaaacccckkkk!

I immediately bought a membership, sailed through islands I had never before seen, met characters, defeated villains, saved innocents, and my medallions were piling up. I never felt happier!

Then I read the post again. They were here until the end of Flash. What? The end of Flash? Poptropica’s life force is shutting down?!

I Googled it to see if it was true. Sure enough, Flash was going away, but Poptropica’s here to stay! I played the old islands for as long as I could, as many times as I could, and tried to make the best of it while I had it. I was sad when the old islands left, but I was proud of myself for bringing peace to so many islands.

The Beginning of the End

At first, I thought it wasn’t too bad. Flash had just been taken away, and Poptropica wasn’t too different. In fact, some improvements even came out! I liked how NPCs walked across Home Island. The removal of the movie theater wasn’t a big deal. I thought it would be fine!

Later, a mini-quest of one of my favorite islands came out: the Zomberry Hero Special Event! For a while, there was peace in Poptropica.

And that became a problem. Sure, there was the occasional mini-quest, but without new islands, there wasn’t much left to do. Little did I know I would be wishing for things to stay the same in the future.

It all kind of collapsed for me when Home Island was remade for Haxe. I loved it the way it was, but now too much is changing. Every single part of Poptropica I loved was either taken away or changed. The changes were always glitchy and annoying in my opinion. The characters became bouncy and peppy and unnatural. No matter how much I petitioned, the creators wouldn’t bring back what I had come to love: Old Poptropica. I couldn’t rely on anything.

Or so I thought.

Meeting the Community

I was searching “Poptropica Help” one day just because I was bored and I wanted to see what came up. A Poptropica Help Blog?! This was just what I needed to keep myself distracted!

I found a huge blog with thousands of readers who love Poptropica as much as I do, a place that keeps me informed about new stuff, one where people all around the world can share their ideas.

That led me to even more fansites: the Poptropica Wiki, We-Love-Poptropica on DeviantArt, and so much more. I finally found a part of Poptropica I could rely on: the community! This was what I could trust!

(You can guess how heartbroken I was when the PHB changed their entire blog as a prank on April Fool’s Day!)

Now, I’m a part of the community, and guest-writing here on this blog, too. So there you go! My Place in Poptropica!

I think all of you deserve a medallion for reading this entire thing. It’s pretty long. Thanks for reading!

Don’t stop popping, 
Silver Shell

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Hope you enjoyed this “My Place in Poptropica” story! If you did, you’ll probably enjoy our other MPIP stories here on the PHB.

If you haven’t already shared your story, we invite you to send in your own. Interested in writing for the PHB under a different Pop-topic? Take a look at our Write for the PHB page for ideas, guidelines, and more! 📰✨