Slanted Fish

Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday, dear Poptropica,
Happy birthday to you!

It’s official: Poptropica is 10 years old! It’s been a whole decade, and Poptropica is still, well, popping. That’s incredible. We said as much earlier this week, but today the Creators made it official with their big birthday bash, on and off Poptropica!

First, as promised earlier, the 10th Birthday Costume – grinning monkey and all – is here! You can get it for free on Poptropica Original by going to the store. It will also be on Worlds, but they’re still “getting the final birthday touches added,” so it’s not there yet.

cake10 2

On the Creators’ Blog, the Creators also shared a glimpse of the celebrations going on in real life at Poptropica HQ in Boston – featuring a sweet-looking birthday cake with the 10th birthday costume printed on it, and a happy birthday message, sitting among a bunch of Poptropica graphic novels, including the latest book, The End of Time!

The mystery blogger on the Creators’ Blog had this to say about the occasion:

IT’S BIRTHDAY TIME! The big 1-0. 10 years of Poptropica awesomeness, time really does fly. Another year under our belt with a newly launched book AND game, the next upcoming year is sure going to be as exciting as the last. Here at Poptropica HQ, we love to celebrate with cake and fun (as I am sure you have seen in past years)

Well, it’s nice to see the festivities at Pop HQ! The post came out around 11 am EST today, with a promise at the end for “another gift we will open today for all of you, and this one is BIG!” So, what they brought up next, at around 2 pm EST, is most likely the rest of the “big release” they had planned for September:

A MEMBERSHIP CONTEST!!!

membership10

The full details and rules are available here, so be sure to check that out before you start dreaming up ways you’re going to win this thing! They’ll be giving out 10 one-month memberships, which are good for both Poptropica Original and Worlds.

The task is to come up with a completely unique island with 3 pre-determined ingredients: a birthday cake, a parrotfish (that’s a real fish, by the way), and the color green. You can present it in any way you want, whether that’s through prose, drawings, websites, or whatever else you can think of to show it to the Creators. They haven’t promised to actually make any winning island a reality, but it’ll still be a fun endeavour.

On the page with all the details, the benefits of membership are displayed to show you what to look forward to if you win, and interestingly, there are a couple of features on the Worlds chart we haven’t seen on Worlds before: an all museums access pass and early island access. So far on Worlds, these things have not been restricted to members, but this suggests that they very well could be in the future. (Thanks to idk for the tip.)

membership benefits

You’ll have 10 days to create and enter for this contest starting today. It ends September 25 (Monday) at 9 am EST. Be sure to read all the rules, and use the submission page to submit your one (and only one) entry!

Speaking of contests… I do believe many of us are still waiting for the winning costumes from the #MyPoptropicaCostume Contest of yesteryear to actually appear in the store. So… if the Creators are still able to pull off another costume and contest like they’re doing now, let’s hope they get on that old promise too. 😉

By the way, don’t forget: the PHB is hosting a Poptropica party this weekend to celebrate the big entrance into double-digit years! Check out this post for more info, and be sure to come! It’s going to be a blast, and the PHB team hopes to see you there!

🎈🍰 🎁🎉 🎂 Happy 10 years, Poptropica! 🎈🍰 🎁🎉 🎂

Here’s to many more.

pop chars

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Bonus Items

10th birthday costume releases this Friday!

September 14, 2017September 14, 2017 Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans!

As you may have heard – that is, unless you’ve been living underground in the Early Poptropica sewers – Poptropica turns 10 years old this year!

To mark this big milestone, Poptropica will be releasing a 10th birthday costume on Friday, September 15. It will be available for a limited time starting then, but it is not clear for how long. But we do know that the costume will be available on both Poptropica Original and Worlds! Nice to see that Original is still getting updated.

We also know what the costume will look like! The Creators released this quick animated clip of the outfit, featuring a happy blue-green monkey wearing the birthday cap on the character’s head and a shirt with the iconic Poptropica blimp. Check it out:

That’s all Poptropica has revealed for now, but we’re still hoping the “big release” they promised for September is a little more than just a costume, seeing as we’ve been getting a new costume for every Poptropica birthday for many years now, so although this costume is a fun one, it’s nothing too out of the ordinary for Poptropica. We’ll see.

Don’t forget, here at the PHB we’ll be having our own celebration for Poptropica’s 10th anniversary this weekend, Saturday in most time zones (3 PM EST). Be sure to check out this post for more details and mark it on your calendar so you can come join us! It’s going to be a poppin’ time. 🎉

10years party

Stay popping, Poptropicans!

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Books, Merchandise

It’s the End of Time for Poptropica Books!

September 12, 2017 Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, guess what time it is…

It’s time for the adventures of Jorge, Mya, and Oliver – our heroes in the Poptropica graphic novels – to come to an end, because Book 4, The End of Time, is here at last. And – in case you hadn’t caught on yet – it’s the finale of this series. 😱

popbooks — photo credit: Daniel Lazar, @DanLazarAgent on Twitter

The book has started shipping for those who pre-ordered it, and is now available in many bookstores across North America! For those who aren’t able to get to a store, fear not: you can still order from Amazon, which ships worldwide (though shipping fees will vary) – or you can even get it on a mobile device (no shipping necessary!).

Plus, on Amazon, it’s still 25% off. So now’s a great time to place an order! 📙

As with any book birthday, it’s quite something to see the book ready at last, so congratulations to Mitch Krpata (the author), Kory Merritt (illustrator), and all the other people who helped make this possible! Knowing that it’s the last book in the series is bittersweet, but Poptropica fans everywhere are sure to enjoy the entire quartet of graphic novels for years to come.

Here at the PHB, we hope to have the chance to read it soon, and we’ll be sure to post a book review sometime in the not-too-distant future for you guys. In the meantime, you can check out our reviews for Book 2 and Book 3. (We also reviewed the island that Book 1 is based on here.)

popbook4 — photo credit: Mitch Krpata, @mkrpata on Twitter

Captain Crawfish – who is most likely Mitch Krpata himself – even made a return to the Creators’ Blog to talk a bit more about the plot of the book:

When The End of Time begins, Mya, Oliver, and Jorge are stranded in the ruins of Poptropica. After causing a cataclysm at the end of the previous book (uh, spoiler alert?), they’re alone and seemingly out of options.

The kids may have one chance to return home. If they can reach the legendary “Nexus,” a place through which all time flows, then it’s possible that they can return home to the instant they left — or even further back.

Faced with the opportunity to rewrite their own histories, our heroes will have to make the most difficult decisions of their lives. And so will Octavian…

Well, it’s nice to see a familiar face on the Creators’ Blog again! We’re still hoping for the day when Ye Current Mystery Blogger makes an introduction.

And now we’ve reached the end of our time here, so Poptropicans, be sure to get your copy of The End of Time, as well as all the earlier books if you haven’t already! (Pro tip: You can read Mystery of the Map on our Comics page.) 📘📕📗📙

Thoughts on The End of Time? 👻🕕 Share in the comments below! 😁

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PHB Parties

Celebrating 10 Years of Poptropica!

September 10, 2017September 16, 2017 Slanted Fish

2007 to 2017… it’s been a poppin’ decade.

September 2007 – From an office in Boston, Poptropica is launched as an extension of the kids’ educational entertainment site FunBrain. There is no blimp, because there’s only one island: Early Poptropica. There is no Costumizer, no friend profiles, no membership. Just a simple island, and a gaggle of basic-looking Poptropicans.

But ten years later… the Poptropica of the past is worlds apart from the present – with tons of creative characters, 50+ intricate islands, and lots more fun features – but at its core, it’s still the same whimsical world it started out as. And now here we are, in September 2017, looking back on the fact that it’s been a whole decade. Most games don’t stay popular for so long and still pump out new content, but this one beat the odds. Wow.

To commemorate the occasion, we put together the graphic above, celebrating each one of Poptropica’s 10 years with the 10 letters of its name (although, since September is not at the start of the calendar year, the last letter had to encompass two years). You can click on the picture above to take a closer look – there are a lot of details packed in, with each letter marking some events that took place in its represented year. Hope you enjoy! 😁

That’s not all. We’re also going to be having a party on Poptropica to celebrate the anniversary – after all, we couldn’t let such a big milestone pass by without one! It’ll be this weekend, it’ll be lit 🔥, and you should totally pop in…

10years party

Mark it on your calendar! Here are the details for the celebration:

😜 WHO: Everyone’s invited! PHB staff will be there too!
🎉 WHAT: Multiverse parties on Poptropica, games, and hanging out on the PHC.
🕒 WHEN: September 16, 2017 (Saturday) @ 3 p.m. EST / 2 p.m. CST / 1 p.m. MST / 12 p.m. PST. If you live in a different timezone, you can use a time zone converter to see what the time will be where you live.
🎈 WHERE: The Poptropica Help Chat (PHC), our moderated chat server on Discord. If you’ll be on the go at this time, you can download the Discord mobile app.
🎂 WHY: To celebrate a decade of Poptropica’s existence!

You’ll find the Multiverse room codes on the PHC during the party. Bring your favorite party gear: colorful outfits, balloons, special effects – let’s pop into those rooms with a bang! See you there, and bring on the flair! 😉

– the Poptropica Help Blog team –

App, Social Media

Followers of Poptropica hope for Dragon Answers

September 9, 2017 Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans!

We thought it might never happen, but Poptropica Original (not Worlds) has gotten an update! But before you get too excited, it’s just on the mobile app, not desktop.

If you update your Poptropica Original app, you’ll get a free Dragon Follower! This little creature is pretty cute, eh? Would’ve been cool to have it on desktop and Worlds as well, so let’s hope it shows up there too.

Thanks to Young Hippo for the in-game screenshots.

There isn’t much else to the latest from the Creators, except to say that whoever made the blog post managed to make two typos: one in the title that was fixed after being pointed out, and another with an extra space in the hyperlink. Speaking of which, why not hyperlink some words instead of posting the entire URL?

Now, this wouldn’t be such a big deal, but with many players feeling a drop in overall quality from the Creators since the release of Worlds, what we’d desperately like to see is for them to step it up – and a higher degree of professionalism would definitely help.

Since Skinny Moon’s departure as Poptropica’s social media manager, we haven’t had any introduction to the new social media staff, and that along with their noticeable differences in communication has only added to the growing impersonal feeling between Creators and players.

naps dragon — fan art by naps (astroknightsisland on tumblr)

With Poptropica’s 10th anniversary coming up this month, we sure hope they’re planning something big for sometime soon, but we’ll just have to wait and see. Not too much has been said about it – Skinny Moon sounded excited about the upcoming 10th anniversary when she was running the social media a few months ago, but now that we are into the month itself, Pop’s social media has been eerily silent on this topic so far.

Still, a few earlier tweets have hinted that something big is coming this September, so perhaps we’re close to a big update soon…

September holds a big release. 😉

— Official Poptropica (@Poptropica) August 24, 2017

All we ask for are a little more answers to our questions: What’s Poptropica working on these days? Who are the new social media staff? Could we have some more interesting updates, blog posts, and community contests?

If you are someone who shares these feelings, leave your questions and concerns in the comments below. The Creators have been known to consider our feedback, so let’s give them some suggestions!

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