Hey Poptropicans, tune in for more on the upcoming Steam bundle!
The fourth hint is here and it’s got only slightly more verbiage than the last one: the letter “C” followed by the word “answer.” What do you C?
Reddit user ashelenbrowses made a strong case for the hint pointing to Mission Atlantis Island: the “answer” is found under the “C” (sea). In this island, we discover an ancient city underwater, which fits the bill.
If you’ve been keeping up with the past few hints (1, 2, 3), this guess goes along with the theory that the 13 islands we’ll be seeing on Steam will be AS3 (newer) “old islands.” Complete islands were promised for Steam, so if this guess is right, it’ll be a bigger offering than the one episode that was ported several months ago to desktop for members. 🌊
(Also, check out our updated Pop Music collection for tunes from Mission Atlantis and more!)
But if you’re hoping for a different guess, we might also consider Skullduggery or SOS, which are also sea-based. Or if we’re looking at the capital C, maybe islands that start with the letter: Counterfeit, Cryptids, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or Pop Worlds-based Crisis Caverns.
It turns out, by the way, that the Steam bundle will not be free. In a comment on the Pop Creators’ Blog, Poptropica replied to a fan’s question about cost, adding that the price is to be announced. It’s pretty disappointing considering that all these old islands were free before they disappeared — but business is business.
Anyway, that’s all for Steam hint #4! Stay tuned for the next one, and if you’ve got some good guesses, share them in the comments or on our Discord server, the PHC. “C” you later!
~🐠
🏝 Poptropica Help Blog 🗺 
This is pretty disappointing and I don’t think many people will be buying this if it’s only AS3 islands. They said news for older players and imo the AS3 islands are only from like, 8 years ago? They made it seem like the OLD old islands were returning like Early Pop, Super Power, etc, they also said “fan favorites” but I don’t recall galactic hot dogs being a fav favorite, and don’t they have barely any problem porting these as3 islands to haxe? Isn’t mission atlantis already on haxe? It’s so confusing and I hope I’m wrong, but I’m concerned about this… Fan favorites are Ghost Story, Astro-Knights, Super Power, etc…
They can port AS3 islands to Haxe, as proven by islands like Time Tangled that are older yet in the desktop game, but progress has been slow and not so steady (consider the remastered Mythology that cut out many parts from the original). So while it may be possible, it seems to come with great challenges.
I am very disappointed. I thought that I might be able to play islands that I never played before. Poptropica does realize that not everyone is going to pay. People are going to stop playing the game all together. They need to realize it before it’s too late
I mean, I understand they need money for Poptropica to still be around, but still, it is starting to get a little much.
We’ll have to see what the future holds, but for now the old islands are at least playable with the unofficial Flashpoint, and we’ll still have records of their gameplay in our Island Help Guides.
IDK why this is such a hotly debated topic. They’re a company. They need to make money to pay people, and it’s not like they can put ads on this. I know a lot of people in this community are minors without a disposable source of income, but if you want it that bad then scrounge up the money or pirate it. I’m very glad they’re giving us a way to directly support them when they do /really/ cool things like this.
It’s controversial because these islands all used to be free (on desktop), and the promise of “old islands” connotes in many players’ minds the oldest of old islands, whereas right now all signs are pointing to the notion that the returning islands will be the newer old islands — which were freely available on the Pop mobile app before they disappeared earlier this year.
That being said, you’re also right that they’re a business looking for profit so they can keep the game running with all the costs that are associated with that. The reality is that Flash’s end left Poptropica without the bulk of their best content, and eager fans are hoping for a past glory that seems irretrievable. Given the situation, the solution they’re planning to offer — which may be the best they can do — is a paid Steam bundle. It may not please everyone, but it’s something.
Right, you have outlined the point of these rather “hot debates” in your first statement quite clearly. It is because these islands were playable by regular players with “free” accounts in the past that they cannot justify making us pay to play them in the present. It is not, in any way, the fault of the players that we can no longer use Flash.
That being said, Poptropica has indeed lost a substantial portion of its content following the discontinuation of Flash, and that has certainly diminished the appeal of the game. Even while considering this, I find it incredibly unreasonable to make features that were free in the past now available exclusively to members or to make players have to pay to play parts of the game that are no longer included on their actual platform.
One of the main things that I think appeals to Poptropica players, whether new or old, is the fact that Poptropica has offered, or could offer in the past, such valuable and immersive content essentially without making players pay for most of the game. As Poptropica is regarded as a children’s game, the general idea should remain to keep the game largely free to play, due to a point mentioned in a comment above: children (minors) do not have a disposable source of income. Seeing as more and more parts of Poptropica are being pushed behind the paywall of membership, a lot of young players or older players who don’t see the point in investing in a Poptropica membership will generally feel dissatisfied with what the game has to offer them, thus alienating a lot of potential players.
In addition to this, we see the Poptropica Creators move towards projects other than restoring their game, such as creating games on Roblox and working towards releasing islands for purchase on Steam, which clearly indicates that these 13 islands will not be returning to the actual Poptropica website, or at least not without a hefty price.
Reading this, I am sure you understand that the Poptropica team is moving away from adding on to the actual Poptropica website, due to the sheer lack of profit thereof and the immense effort that would be required in pursuing this idea. What I don’t understand is that Poptropica wasn’t meant to be a for-profit endeavour, at least not from what some of the former Creators seem to think. It was also not always the game with the many islands we knew it to have. Getting to that point required long hours of work by the Creators, and many years of slow progress. Naturally, when all of that has now been lost by Poptropica, the Creators cannot expect to maintain Poptropica’s legacy and popularity with a diminished form of the game. The Poptropica Creators need to understand that they are not in a position to be trying to sustain profits from the game. Rather they should be working from the ground up to salvage the Poptropica website and make the game worth playing again. Abandoning efforts to restore the islands to the original website and instead offering them to your audience at a price is not an effective solution to restore the game. Do the Creators really think that all of us would find that idea appealing? Having to pay to play something we could have played for free in the past? Are they simply quite so desperate to gain profits from this game in any way possible, or do they believe us to be desperate enough to pay to play some of the older islands?
Personally, I believe the correct approach to restoring the game would be a clear plan for restoring the islands, through recoding, or perhaps redeveloping the islands entirely, and doing so with as much active transparency with their players as possible. In this plan, they would ultimately be able to bring back some of the older aspects of the game. Us older players have waited, and I am sure we can continue to wait. If the Poptropica Creators were a little more transparent with their plans, it would only make the wait easier, as we would be sure of the efforts and progress made on their end. By focusing solely on restoring the game, Poptropica will eventually be able to provide us with what we want: the commendable stories and the memories we made and shall continue to make with them. When we’re getting an experience where young players can enjoy the game without having to get their parents to pay for access to certain aspects of the game that ought to be free, and where membership offers particularly noteworthy perks, such as early access to islands or other perks that do not undermine a free player’s experience of the game too substantially, only then should Poptropica be reaping any sort of profits.