Author: Slanted Fish

Hello! I'm Slanted Fish, the editor-in-chief and creator of the Poptropica Help Blog (PHB). I'm a writer, Hong Kong native, and Christ follower. My Poptropica username is slantedfish 🐠 Don't forget to be awesome!
Social Media

Outfit snatching and a Skinny note

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, it’s Slanted Fish popping in to show you what’s popping.

The Creators have posted another “Outfit of the Week,” and this time it’s Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series. Check it out:

ootw hermione

That’s creative, it seems, except it wasn’t their creation to begin with—and while they say in the post “we spotted this,” they fail to give credit to the source. Locating the source should only take a simple internet search, and I was able to find this attributed to Rachellyy, a.k.a. Short Eagle, over on the Poptropica Fashion Wiki. And, again, descriptions for how to get the costume were absent altogether.

Want instructions on how to get a cool Hermione costume, plus how to dress up as other characters from Harry Potter? Check out our PHB Pop-over Special: Yer a Poptropican, Harry!

Considering that the Creators also say they’ll be featuring outfits from members of the community, proper attribution is not something that should be overlooked. You can do better, unnamed blogger.

As we said in our previous update about the Creators’ Blog, what we want to see is more creative content from the Creators—sneak peeks for upcoming adventures are ideal, but even just more effort into posts like Outfit of the Week would be something. What we’re getting, and don’t need, are all the Island Highlights—old news for most of us.

Notice, too, how although the Creators’ Blog supposedly takes comments, there are still 0 comments on every post lately. Several of our PHB commenters have mentioned how they’ve tried to comment, but their comments have yet to be approved to be seen on the blog. Creators, if you’re going to be asking us to “comment below,” why aren’t you showing and interacting with these comments? Fans want to know they’re heard!

Oh, and despite multiple attempts to reach out to the Creators on Twitter—no word from them on our many ideas for the game and community that they claimed to be so interested in. Hmm.

In the meantime, we also got this brief note from former social media manager, Jessica a.k.a. Skinny Moon:

Although we only know of a few of the Creators who were asked to leave a couple months ago, the tweet seems to suggest that more have left, to the point where “almost everyone” who was there before, when was working Skinny Moon with the Poptropica team a year ago, “is gone now.” Sad. 😦

On a brighter note, the community of Poptropicans here at the PHB is still kicking! In addition to our own posts, we regularly welcome guest posts from readers. You can check them out just by scrolling down our front page, and we invite you to write for the PHB anytime you’ve got an idea worth sharing!

That’s all for now. Keep on popping on, Poptropicans.

<・)))><<

Guest Posts, Popspiracy Theories

Popspiracy: The Map of Mayhem

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans—this is a guest post by Moody Tuna, who’s offering his take on the origins of Poptropica, inspired by lore of the Pop universe such as the Forgotten Islands game, the Creators, and more. This work is purely fictional. Enjoy!

popspiracy map

There was once a group of psychics and magicians who got together to create Poptropica—everything on its map. They were called the Trinity Syndicate, nowadays referred to as “the Creators.”

Poptropica was created underneath Yggdrasil, more commonly known as the Realms Tree or Great Tree. A magical pink flower was cut up and added to water to cut a magical map out of paper made from the tree.

The Creators granted public access to the map for all Poptropicans to see and travel to their futures, but soon, people had made use of the map to all sorts of disaster within the timeline of history. There was a problem on every island, and the Poptropicans were miserable.

So, the Trinity Syndicate went into hiding to fix the problems of the map—to fix the timeline and save the world. The public’s access to the map became much more limited, no longer with powers into the future, but still with the ability to travel from island to island. Islands like Time Tangled were made to try to solve the issues, yet it wasn’t enough.

The Creators called upon The Great Om, who was the first Poptropican, to embark on a quest to fix the future. He was bestowed with gifts, each of great importance: the bottomless bag, the camouflage shirt, and so on, all to aid Om in his quest.

A medallion was set on every island to reward Om along his travels. As Om continued to rack up medallions, he believed himself to be the greatest man in history.

great om

Om believed it was all a game, and when all the islands were “completed,” he demanded of the Creators to make more. In response, the Creators made Super Villain Island to capture all the villains, yet they still escaped—you can read more on that here. The mysterious place they escaped to has been called many names, such as Island “?” or Island X, as it is referred to in the Ongoing Story Creation. But the Creators believed the villains had been released into the future, and they were displeased with Om for not putting a stop to it.

Without much hope left to reverse the ill effects on Poptropica caused by its people and ultimately they themselves, the Creators decided to entrust the full powers of the map to Thorir Ásvaldsson, the great-great-grandfather of Erik the Red. The map was passed down through the generations, but during Erik’s reign, it was stolen by Octavian.

motm 13

With the Creators alerted of the robbery, they assembled a search party for it and discovered that Octavian had given it to the Valentines, who made it their duty to protect the full-powered map at all costs. The Valentines were ordinary people with the goddess Artemis on their side, granting them power and protection. The strongest one of them was Cathorin, the youngest Valentine.

The search party of eight, fondly known as “The Authors,” continued searching for many years. They split up, eventually starting the eight Tribes of Poptropica. 

One day, the leader of the Black Flags, Brave Tomato, came across the magic garden where Cathorin guarded the map. As she approached, Cathorin took out his katana, and the two fought. Some say they fought for days and days, perhaps even weeks. As they battled, they talked, got to know each other, and fell in love in the process.

With her loyalty turned to the map’s guardian, Brave Tomato kept the garden a secret from the rest of the Authors, never speaking of her affair. Meanwhile, the Authors collectively built the Poptropica Help Building, to provide assistant to all Poptropicans, with the secret underlying mission of continuing to search for the important map.

To this day, the map remains in the hands of a few elite, and that’s all I will say…

~MT

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Moody Tuna! If you did, be sure to check out another guest post of his: Pop Petition: Bring Tribes to Worlds.

The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. You can find some tips and guidelines on our Write for the PHB page. We also encourage sharing blog posts on the PHC.

If you have an idea for a PHB post, send it in! 🙂

Guest Posts, PopTROPEica

Pop-TROPE-ica: Exhibits for Education

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans—this is a guest post by Beefy Dragon, who’s bringing back our “Pop-TROPE-ica” series with her take on Poptropica’s approach to education, particularly to the trope of exhibits more commonly seen on Poptropica Worlds. Enjoy!

trope ed

What’s up, PHB readers? It’s guest writer Beefy Dragon. Welcome to another installment in the Pop-TROPE-ica series. It’s been a while since the last one, so for the new readers, Pop-trope-ica posts discuss common threads that run through many Poptropica islands, a.k.a. “tropes.”

This time, we’ll be discussing education, a core feature of Poptropica, from Original to Worlds, manifested in exhibits and other fun forms.

Pop Art Screencap

Education has been one of Poptropica’s goals since the beginning. Heck, their About Us page even includes the word “learning.” The first island, Early Poptropica, features an art gallery, where you can talk to and learn about various painters, as well as view famous works of art. Since then, learning has been more seamlessly woven into gameplay.

About Us Screencap

On Counterfeit Island, you learn about some of the ways museums identify forgeries (and learn a few words of French, Ballon Boy’s native language). Time Tangled Island has you interacting with different points in history. Zomberry Island has you finding clues to solve a logic puzzle. Game Show Island has a quiz show teaching you about such topics as homophones, sports, famous landmarks, and pop culture.

These types of educational puzzles and games are on every Poptropica island in various forms, and they tend to be enjoyable and interesting.

Game Show Screencap

That’s not even getting into the many references to books and other pieces of popular culture scattered throughout the islands. On Vampire’s Curse, for example, we encounter lots of vampire lore, stemming from the classic Dracula by Bram Stoker. Not coincidentally, the island features Count “Bram.” (Eh?) The plot of the last two episodes of Survival Island is heavily inspired by The Most Dangerous Game, a short story featured in many a high school English class. There are also islands based explicitly on more modern books, such as the two Wimpy Kid islands, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Nabooti, and Red Dragon (based on the Magic Tree House series).

All of these examples are expertly incorporated into the plots of the islands. They all feel perfectly natural, and are important for completing the quest of the island. You feel like you’re doing good things by completing these games.

This brings us to Poptropica Worlds. While looking for ways to continue this pattern of learning, the Creators have taken the concept of Early Poptropica’s Pop Art Museum and applied it to every single Island on Worlds so far (we’re not counting Dr. Hare’s Revenge).

The issue for me is, the Museums on Worlds feel considerably less fun, considering there is less interaction with characters. They’ve got many plaques you can click on to learn about whatever the island’s “thing” is—so far, natural parks, Greek mythology, and carrots. Thrilling.

The museums are not requirements for completing the island, and I personally find them pretty boring. (Seriously, real-life museums are more interesting, because you get to see the artifacts and exhibits they’re referring to in 3D Ultra-HD graphics.) I imagine it’s not uncommon for players to simply skip over most of the exhibits after reading one or two.

Now, imagine if the islands had found a way to incorporate this information naturally! Instead of a few minor changes to the quests, the remastered 24 Carrot Island could have featured a mini-game where you sort carrots by color, conveying information about different types of carrots in a much more interactive way. Greek Sea Odyssey could have revealed more about the characters and myths behind them while we actually talked to them, rather than just hiding it away in a little museum in the back of the ship. You see what I mean?

Hopefully Worlds will try a different approach that has the fun of what Poptropica Original offered. Maybe while remaking old islands, the Creators will begin to see the value in interactive and fun mini-games, and future original stories will include more of them. Looking forward to many more Poptropica adventures!

–Beefy Dragon

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Beefy Dragon! If you did, be sure to check out the other posts in our Pop-TROPE-ica series.

The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. You can find some tips and guidelines on our Write for the PHB page. We also encourage sharing blog posts on the PHC.

If you have an idea for a PHB post, send it in!

Pranks

April Fools! #2018 #WeStillBlogGood

Slanted Fish

aprilfools2018

April Fools, Poptropicans!

Yesterday, on April 1, the PHB declared that, inspired by the Poptropica Creators’ rehashed blogging and frivolous tweeting as of late, we were going to change things up here on our own site. Over the course of the day, we released over 10 silly posts on our blog, replete with hashtags and cute pics galore. We hope they made you smile. And don’t worry—it was all just an April Fools Day prank. Did we fool you?

You can catch up on the badly-inspired posts by scrolling down if you’re reading this on the homepage, or by clicking the links below:

The PHB team had fun coming up with these posts, and we hope you liked them too. Some of you even commented with your own hashtags—thanks for the love!

Rest assured, the Poptropica Help Blog will not be going the way of the Creators’ Blog—at least, not like this—and we’ll be leaving the tweeting style to Twitter. We plan to keep bringing you quality content and staying on top of things—and we hope the Creators will, sooner rather than later, get back on that track too. 😉

Thanks for sticking with us. Keep popping on, Poptropicans.

#peace #aprilfools #srslytho

– slantedfish 🐠 –

Pranks

It’s never too early for Early Poptropica Island 🐷

Slanted Fish

Who cares that this island came out forever ago? It’s a classic and we’re going to make sure you know it. Tbh, no new islands are coming out anytime soon, so nothing left to do but to keep putting out the old stuff.

Plus, you can check if you’re a top finisher—though, let’s be real, the whole world probably beat you to it.

earlypopworldmap

#EarlyPop #circa2007 #11YearsAgo #GoodOldDays #Nostalgia #TheOriginal #8BitPilgrim #Only2000sKidsWillRememberThis #TheyDontMakeThemLikeTheyUsedTo #InFactTheyBarelyMakeThemAtAll #cries #LiekIfUCriEvrytiem #ThrowbackSunday