Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, it’s Slanted Fish, and today’s menu brings us grilled cheese and neon wieners! That’s right… it’s time for some Galactic Hot Dogs.

This weekend on the Creators’ Blog, while we were busy with our April Fools prank, Poptropica shared some behind-the-scenes goodies for Galactic Hot Dogs Island, as it was one of March’s Islands of the Month. Let’s take a look.

First, as they do with every island, the artists working on GHD Island had to follow a style guide to keep the overall look consistent as they created their creepy monsters and planetary paradises. As you can see below, this included using a thick black 2-point line on foreground objects (unique among the Poptropica islands), and a suggested font by the name of Grilled Cheese! Yum. Check it out below (click to enlarge):

Also, if you look closely at the stand-in character, he’s carrying an unused green bag that says “P-Con 2014,” along with a badge to match it. Probably an early prototype. What other interesting things did you find in there?

Anyway, after finalizing their designs, the next step for the artists was to test out the animations. We’re not able to embed them here on the PHB, but you can check out the little videos over on the Creators’ Blog post.

We also get to see this delightfully disgusting drawing of the zombie space pirate:

Neat-o. Well, that’s about all for the Earthly Cool Cats – uh, I mean Galactic Hot Dogs. GHD is no longer an Island of the Month – yes, we know we’re a little late on this news, but hey… so were the Creators. 😉

Anyway, as it’s Wimpy Kid Month, the current IOTMs are Wimpy Wonderland and Wimpy Boardwalk – which will be open to everyone for the month of April, so get on it!

Stay popping, Poptropicans!

–🐠

Pranks

PopFeedz: Just a Prank, Bro!

April 2, 2017April 2, 2017 Slanted Fish

April Fools, Poptropicans!

Yesterday, on April Fools Day, the PHB announced PopFeedz, a new site promising pure Poptropica entertainment, named as the PHB’s “cooler cousin” for abandoning the PHB’s typical posting style in favor of fun web trends like clickbait titles and the most random personality quizzes, gifs, listicles, cute animal pics, more. Well, as many of you guessed, it was just an April Fools prank: we’re not actually planning to turn the PHB into another Buzzfeed.

Many of you caught onto our joke, although we did manage to fool some of you. 😜 Either way, we hope you enjoyed exploring the PopFeedz site we put together! If you missed it, or want to relive it, the site will remain available at popfeedz.wordpress.com – so enjoy!

popfeedz layout

The PHB team worked hard to put everything together, combining ideas and being inspired by each other. Lucky Joker even put up a new quiz about PopGum after we had announced the site! A sketch from Brave Tomato made its way into the post about Skinny Moon – which, if you haven’t figured out yet, is just our imagination, and not a real interview. 😉

As the team was coming up with ideas for what to do for this year’s prank, we kept thinking we wanted to do something about Poptropica Worlds, which was tricky since we still don’t know much about it. However, Slippery Raptor had the idea of turning the PHB into a “PHB 2.0,” just as Worlds is a New Poptropica – and from there, it took off!

The name PopFeedz is, of course, inspired by Buzzfeed, a popular entertainment website with all sorts of fun time-wasters. The content of PopFeedz is similarly inspired, particularly with quizzes, memes, and an overall style of clickbait titles and concise text. Of course, everything is adapted to Poptropica, such as Spotted Dragon’s “You Will NOT Believe What’s In These Behind-the-Scenes Sketches…” playing on our own concerns about what might happen with Poptropica Worlds, but with a humorous intent. And as a reference to the shiny Worlds art we’ve been seeing, we even threw in a little parody of the hit song “Shiny” from the recent Disney film Moana in our announcement post.

Pets of Poptropica is inspired by some of Skinny Moon’s latest social media posts, not only about her pup Toby, but also her call to post pictures of pets on social media with the hashtag #PetsOfPoptropica. A few of us had pets (both past and present), so we started a pets series on PopFeedz! Here’s a look at my betta fish, Biscotti, staring at my Poptropican on the computer screen:

Because these articles were enjoyed so much, we hope to re-publish a few of them here on the PHB over the next few weeks, so they can be enjoyed by even more readers, who might have missed them on PopFeedz. However, some of them will remain exclusive to PopFeedz since they are more suitable there, so be sure to check them out.

On April 1, PopFeedz received over 1,600 visits to the site, and we heard from many of you about how much you liked it! We even received this complimentary message from the one and only Skinny Moon:

sm comment prank

As always, the team here at the PHB is grateful for your continued support and readership, and we’d like to think PopFeedz was one fun way to celebrate that fact. The Poptropica Help Blog is here to stay, so stay popping, Poptropicans! 😜✌️

– slantedfish 🐠 –

Pranks

Introducing a New World of PHB: PopFeedz!

April 1, 2017April 2, 2017 Slanted Fish

Well, Poptropica hasn’t always been this glam
It was a lame little game once
But now, we gotta say, it’s our jam
Because it’s beautiful, baby…

So we all know about the new Poptropica Worlds that’s going to debut this spring. But it’s been quite the wait, and all this talk of new has gotten the PHB team thinking: As Worlds takes on a life of its own, what are we going to do to adapt?

It occurred to us that, just as the game has to adapt to modern technologies, so too should our blog adapt to what’s in these days. And that’s why we’re excited to present…

{ popfeedz.wordpress.com }

PopFeedz, the brand-new cooler, cutting-edge cousin of the Poptropica Help Blog! Yeah, come on, check out what the buzz is all about. It’s pretty awesome.

This newfangled, revamped PHB brings you the latest fads in website entertainment, and honestly, it’s so cool that it makes what we’ve got here on the old PHB look boring.

On PopFeedz, we don’t need tedious guides that only serve to cheat people out of the joys of playing the game. Nor does PopFeedz fool around with lengthy posts that analyze Poptropica’s updates to death the way the PHB would. Instead, it fools around with the fun parts of Poptropica, and everything’s short and sweet!

There are the personality quizzes…

pf quiz

(So far, we’ve got the big hits of “What Island Are You?”, “Can You Pop to the Top?”, and “Do You Know Your Poptropica Islands in 140 Characters or Less?” Stay tuned for “Which Astro-Knights planet describes your mood?”, “What flavor of PopGum are you?”, and lots more!)

the celebrity gossip and memes…

pf sm and tweets

(Haven’t you always wondered about Skinny Moon’s childhood? We don’t want to give too much away here… you’ll have to see it for yourself…)

the cute pets…

pf pets

(Toby the #PoptropicaPup isn’t the only cute animal in this community!)

…and muuuuch more. Seriously, you’re going to love it. So come on over and read our new clickbait articles until the sun comes up in the morning and you’re wondering why you still didn’t finish your homework. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Gone are the old ways of the PHB. No more long wordy posts investigating the tiniest detail of an image. In fact, we’ll stop rambling on soon and let the site speak for itself. Everything’s bite-sized these days, and it’s all about the fun, fun, fun.

No need to come to us for the news – that’s all on the Creators’ Blog. We’ll make it fun for you, though, so come back to PopFeedz for the latest gossip, cute pet pics, and other entertainment! Just as Poptropica Worlds is bringing us a new gaming experience, so PopFeedz is here to bring you a new fansite experience.

This might just be the last long-winded post on the PHB. From here on out, we’re handing the reins over to PopFeedz. New style. New substance.

A poppin’, shiny, simpler newsfeed. Check out PopFeedz today.

We’d rather be… shiny
Like treasure from old Captain Crawfish’s wreck
Scrub the deck and make it look… shiny!

(Certified 100% Shiny™ by our crustaceous friend Tamatoa.)

–the ~~PHB~~ PopFeedz team–

Home Island

Now Playing in Theaters: What Even Are All These Videos??

March 31, 2017April 1, 2017 Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans! Slanted Fish here to make a splash on the silver screen!

new2bmovie2btheater2bon2bpoptropica2521

The big news of the day is that the Movie Theater on Home Island, which appeared a week ago, is now open for business! The sign is glimmering, and the door is open, so head on in. Inside, you’ll find a little room with a bright sign leading you into the theater. (Wait, where are the concessions?)

Once you click there, a video player will pop up, and the movies will begin! However, the movies aren’t anything we predicted in our previous post about the theater. Instead, this is a collection of kiddy videos – fun, educational, and everything in between – that a few of the Creators picked out for everyone.

(Notes: If you have AdBlock on, you’ll need to deactivate it on Poptropica in order for the videos to play. To see the videos without logging in, click here – thanks to idk for the link.)

If you click on the red video camera button in the top corner, you can browse through a really long list of videos. Here’s what the interface looks like:

The very first video that plays is a song about gravity with animated robots, and it’s very much aimed at a younger age group. However, there is quite a variety among the video selection, from comedy sketches to educational animations and more, and it’s possible to find clips that slightly older audiences can enjoy as well, if you click around. Still, having the starting clip be something so juvenile was a little jarring, to say the least.

All the videos are produced by sources outside of Poptropica. Poptropica must have obtained some kind of rights with the various different producers of these videos in order to be able to show them, but how they’ve worked that out is not clear. At any rate, some Poptropicans on the PHC have already been voicing out some disappointment in seeing that these videos are not Poptropica-produced, as many had hoped. But this doesn’t have to be a bad thing, if they work at choosing videos that will interest the diverse tastes of all Poptropicans. At the moment, however, it seems that most of the videos are geared towards elementary-aged kids.

All in all, the Movie Theater wasn’t what most Poptropicans were hoping for – and the unfamiliarity and lack of organization among the videos has made this update fall a little flat for some eager Poptropicans. I think it would be a good idea for Poptropica, in the future, to arrange the videos by topic and/or age group in order to make it easier to find something you’re interested in.

The good news is, there’s still a wide selection and variety of topics explored in the fun-themed videos, so if you dig deeper, you can probably find something to your tastes (I personally enjoyed the “Types of Teachers” video!). And, this being a carefully curated selection, everything is child-friendly, which could make this a nice alternative from YouTube for the cautious parents out there.

As announced on the Creators’ Blog, the Movie Theater is up on the web now, and will be joining the Poptropica mobile app very soon.

Plus, they plan to mix up the selection of videos playing in the theater as time goes on, so be sure to check back to see what’s new!

What do you think of the new Movie Theater? Any videos you recommend among the huge list? Any videos you think are not worth watching? What else do you wish to see Poptropica do with the theater? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

~🐠

Guest Posts, Realms

Pre-Realms Tour: The Land of Chole

March 21, 2017June 22, 2017 Slanted Fish

(Hey Poptropicans! This is a guest post written by Sticky Clown, in which he gives a tour of his Pre-Realms Land creation, Chole. Enjoy! –🐠)

chole

Hello everyone! I am Sticky Clown, or SC if you’d like. I go by Starving Cereal on WordPress.

Today I wish to show you something a bit old, just for fun to distract from the Poptropica World stuff going on currently. It is my old home. As in, from Poptropica Land (that was the prototype before Realms, for those who don’t know). Now, a few of you who have known me since ye old glory days may object to what I am doing, as I have previously posted this on a few other blogs. But the reason I’m doing this is – well, there’s many. They are:

While Poptropica Land is about three years old, it’s still very similar to Realms and should be easy to digest. Plus, I’d say this can qualify as a period piece.
This is not going to be the exact same as that post I’ve made elsewhere. I have added several extra thoughts as well as some modifications. This is going to be 2-3 times as big as the original, at least.
Soon I hope to be doing a tour of my Realms, Chole (the code for that is 3vpqv, if you’re interested in checking it out for yourself </plug>). Think of this as a prelude to my adventure, a point which you can use for comparison.
And finally… I’m an egocentric bigoted unsatisfiable superficial narcissist hungering for infinite fame on the interwebs, ready to repost old posts just to gain more attention, even if it is based on a game aimed towards children.

So yeah, I think I’ve justified myself sufficiently. Let’s start on this wonderful journey, shall we? 🙂

To start, here is the bridge to my house – my first ever build!

Yeah… it’s a bit crappy. I’m not very fond of this myself, and that’s discarding everything else I’ve built. Let’s concentrate on the bridge as we cross it with my Mocktropica Narf companion, Narfy.

Continue reading “Pre-Realms Tour: The Land of Chole” →