Author: HPuterpop

I'm Andrew Wiles, although on this account I'm known as HPuterpop. I've played Poptropica since 2007, the year it started. I play on the users puterpop and puterpoptropica. I'm a graphic designer, editor on the Poptropica Help Blog, and executive manager on the Poptropica Wiki. Check out my links to find out what I'm doing at the moment - I like to stay active in the community and always have a couple projects in the works. Consider subscribing to my YouTube channel and following me on Google+. I would greatly appreciate it. I'd like to stress how easy it is to contact me, so if you do need to, [email protected] is the one to contact. Thanks for reading, I'll see you soon. :) And thanks to Muzzki for my current profile pic!
Contests

Announcing the winners of HPuterpop Fan Art contest!

HPuterpop

Hi Gs,

The time has come. For 10 days, you guys have submitted artwork to my email for the HPuterpop Fan Art Contest. And now, I have chosen three winners…

hputerpopFanArtContestWinners

Third Place

I debated myself about this quite a while, but I had to go with BlazingAngel123‘s icon – it’s just awesome. I love her style and how she made it a square ratio (which is half the work in this case!).

hputerpopArt1

Second Place

I can’t help but make this second place: Spotted Dragon‘s pic is epic. I love the style, the line art, the color – it’s a good blend and just portrays my Poptropican well. Good job!

art12

(and no, I have no regrets for making one of the PHB authors a winner :p)

First Place

The first prize goes to Muzzki! This piece shows my Poptropican (as well as some others) as I would imagine him. The colorful background and overall quality of the piece is to be expected from art by Muzzki, and this instance is no exception!

From the giant light bulb balloon and the overall whimsical feel to this piece, this is definitely my pick. And she even included a pic for my recent birthday!

—

Thanks to everyone who entered in this contest! I had so much fun receiving art – we got 18 pieces of art in whole – from people I never would have thought to make them! I didn’t expect this contest to be such a hit, but I’m glad it did! We may do something similar to this in the future.

For the winners, you can contact me at [email protected] describing what you want your profile picture to be. I’ve added the winning pics to three different profiles – on my WordPress, Google, and Gamepedia.

Read more for all the entries (I added my thoughts on each one!)

Continue reading “Announcing the winners of HPuterpop Fan Art contest!” →

Our Discovery Island

Oh boy… ORANGE POPTROPICA?!

HPuterpop

Hi Gs,

I made a discovery yesterday – something that may change everything. Actually, so much stuff has been going on lately that I’m sorta worried – school is starting soon!

I was searching through Amazon for ‘poptropica books’, as I do every once and a while. I’m super hopeful for the Mystery of the Map graphic novel! But instead, I found more of the ‘Poptropica English’ books – if you’re not aware of the first, it was called ‘Future Island‘ – I discovered it back in 2014.

odi1

Digging further, I zoomed in on one of the backs of the books, and went to the site it directed to – pearsonelt.com/ourdiscoveryisland. This redirects to an intro to ‘Our Discovery Island: Powered by Poptropica’. Once in the site, I was shocked – this was what Pearson was up to? Apparently, ‘Poptropica English’ was a part of an educational class made by Pearson!

odi2

But there’s more. Going to ourdiscoveryisland.com, I was shocked – orange Poptropica! Trying to create a new player, it seemed you need an access code to get in.

odi4

So, I went to Chris Barney, a dev of Poptropica who I am in contact with. He told me that Poptropica contributed (not sold) its engine to Pearson, and that more of these “Poptropica clones” may be showing up soon.

The wording on the site made it seem like that they had created actual islands based on the books. Watching a few videos (FROM 2011?!), it showed these islands (they look like real islands, too!). Here’s the thing, though: these characters had actual audio voice acting!

In addition to that gameplay video, there are also animations for Our Discovery Island on YouTube – likely related to the “Poptropica animations” we’ve heard about before.

I wasn’t completely convinced, until my friend Pixel got into an account! They do have voice acting – and it isn’t half bad! And let me remind you that this is pre-SUI (still unsure about my cash-cow theory?).

odi

There are a number of these islands, based on the books (so yes, one for Future Island too), each following the simplistic plot of the books.

Again, Chris said that there are more of these to come! I wonder what troubles this could cause…

Our Discovery Island is not easily accessible, and I’m probably going to have to buy the books to get in. However, it has the Poptropica name plastered all over it, and so it technically is official content. The Poptropica Wiki has got some work to do.

Also, it’s run by Pearson – could this be why Poptropica left?

TAFN.

-HPuterpop

Contests

HPuterpop Fan Art Contest!

HPuterpop

Hi Gs!

So my Wikia profile on the Poptropica Wiki is my pride and joy – it tells my whole story organized beautifully and I just love it – but there’s a ‘fan art’ section there that’s pretty lacking. No, not my own fan art – artists’ fan art of me. And so for the next couple weeks, I’m going to have a little contest! Details are below.

hputerpopFanArtContest

  • messySinkerIt must contain yours truly in the costume to the right – it can contain anything or anyone else you choose.
  • It must be a square ratio – the winner gets their art as my profile picture!

Send in your art to [email protected]. The deadline for submissions is the 20th of August, so you’ve got plenty of time to perfect your craft!

The winner and two runner ups will get a special profile picture drawn by me! The winner’s drawing will be my profile picture for a good amount of time as well. 😀

Let the doodles begin!

TAFN.

-HPuterpop

Popspiracy Theories

Poptropica Mystery: Where did the native islanders go?

HPuterpop

Hi Gs,

PopMysterySharktoothnatives

This mystery goes all the way back to the very 2nd Island – Shark Tooth Island. On it, you learn a few things about it’s history:

  • Professor Hammerhead discovered the island and it’s ruins years ago. This island was abandoned some time before it was re-inhabited.
  • The native islanders there found how to calm the shark using a special concoction.
  • The Medicine Man will only talk to Native Islanders.

This said, we have some things to consider – primarily about the Medicine Man. Is he a native islander? He wears a grass skirt and will only talk to native islanders, which leads to the presumption that he is… but if he still is there, then where are the rest of the native islanders? Read the rest of the post over on Slippery Raptor’s Blog!

Glitches

Poptropica: Make “rare costume” glitches obsolete!

HPuterpop

Hi Gs,

I’m touching on something mildly controversial today, and some people will hate me for it – glitch trading. Poptropica’s trading community has become a monster. No, I don’t want your weird hat that looks like a football got shoved into an ostrich’s mouth.

RARES

Seriously, guys. What is cool about having weird looking costumes? What does that prove? I get messages every day asking me if I want to trade some of my “rare” items in my costume closet – which by the way, are uncommon, not deformed. For someone who knows how the game works internally, it’s sorta useless to try to trade these things with me.

(By the way, if you have any rare pepes to trade, that’s a whole nother ballgame. Contact me for more info 😉 )

But for real, I don’t see why it’s such a big deal nowadays. However, that’s not what I’m here to talk about. Instead, this is my opinion on how to fix glitches – glitches like the Avatar Studio glitch, the SUI Costumizer glitch, and the eye expression glitch.

popcheats2015

I want to talk about a little game called Terraria, which if you didn’t know is one of my favorite games. They recently came out with an update involving 800 new items, new NPCs, better artwork, etc – but that’s beside the point. The point is, in the update before that, a game breaking glitch had come to the surface – hoiking. It was a way of transportation that exploited the game’s way of making sure players wouldn’t get stuck in blocks. It was the fastest way of travelling ingame – until the new update. They literally made it so minecarts could go even faster than hoiking, therefore making it obsolete.

hoiking2

This is what Poptropica needs to do – instead of having a glitchy reputation, have a smart one. Make a card that allows you to have different eye expressions, make costume trading possible, and make more things costumizable. Make glitches obsolete not by fixing them (some of which can’t be fixed without extensive redesign), but by making them unnecessary in comparison.

TAFN.

-HPuterpop