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!
My Place in Poptropica

My Place in Poptropica: Calm Star (TealWings)

Slanted Fish

This is the My Place in Poptropica story of Calm Star (TealWings), who discovered her passion for writing through browsing the Poptropica fandom. See the bottom of this post for sending in your MPIP!

mpip calmstar

2010-2012 | Early Days

I was about four or five years old when I started to play Poptropica. We were at the library, when I saw my sister playing a game on the computer. I asked her about what she was playing and she responded, “You are a baby! That tiny brain of yours can’t do anything!” Those words stung like bees.

However, when I went home that day, I decided to start a Poptropica account. My first account was called Messy Speck. I like that name because, it was so…. me. When my sister saw me playing Poptropica, she suddenly wanted to help me. She showed me what the icons meant, how to make friends, and more. Back then, I did not know how to beat a single island! I needed help, and fast. But it wasn’t until a couple of years that I figured that out.

2013-2014 | Poptropica Help Blog and Being Too Busy

I was searching one day for a website to help me beat the islands. Then, I saw my sister looking at a walkthrough. I always studied it when she was at the computer, then I found its name, Poptropica Help Blog. I immediately looked it up and clicked on it.

It gave me so much information! I would spend days on the computer, reading its tips and tricks. I was in love! Now, I used it all the time when I wanted to do something on Poptropica.

The following year, in 2014, I was super busy, so I only played on the weekends. Besides, I figured, Poptropica will never disappear… right? I was on and off Poptropica a lot, also playing other games my friends played.

Plus, my computer had a lot of viruses. Eventually, I had lost interest in Poptropica, so I quit playing.

2015 | A New Account

In 2015, I got a new account, Cool Star. My interest in Poptropica renewed, but I did not use an account to play much. Instead, I read the PHB a lot. I could not comment on the stories and posts I saw, because I did not have an email account. (Editor’s note: You can comment on the PHB without an email address – just enter a fake one!)

So, I wrote what I wanted to say on the PHB in my own journal. Because of this, I fell in love with writing. I loved the way you could express your feelings anonymously!

Pretty soon, I had three journals full of my feelings. Writing did not just become a hobby, but a passion. I wrote fiction and nonfiction articles about anything! I became addicted to writing!

At some point, I stopped playing Poptropica again. My other friends were playing new games, so I did too. I thought I’d quit Poptropica forever. I became busy with other things, so Poptropica was the least of my worries.

But I was still writing. A lot.

2016 | A New Way

In 2016, I actually found time for Poptropica. I had gotten an email account, and so, it was commenting time on the PHB!! I actually did not comment a lot – but I kept writing in my journal.

I’m now in fifth grade. And I love playing Poptropica! My username is TealWings, and my name on Poptropica is Calm Star. But I am not calm!!! I have beaten 20 islands, but not on the same account.

Also, you might see me in the common rooms! I love how you can’t say mean things on Poptropica. Why do you have to be mean to someone?

Anyway, without Poptropica, I would not have realized my passion for writing! Ok, that was awkward. Did I come on too strong? Let us keep going. I also want to say that, thanks to the PHB’s Avatar Studio Gift, I have a lot of cool costumes. Well, that’s all for now… PEACE OUT!

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Hope you enjoyed this “My Place in Poptropica” story! Feel free to send in your own (please include a minimum of 550 words, type with good spelling and grammar, divide it into labeled sections, and include your username). Look out for more community MPIPs in the future!

~the Poptropica Help Blog

Contests, PHB Sneak Peeks

Snapping peeks at 2007 BETA, a test room, & #PoptropicaFun winners

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans!

Post update: After a long silence, Poptropica has finally posted something on Snapchat! (Perhaps you don’t even remember they had one to begin with! You can add them via the username PoptropicaSC.) It looks like Skinny Moon runs this account as well, as that’s her dog Toby and her Poptropican who’s “all cozy for fall!”

Here’s hoping we see some more behind-the-scenes of a Poptropica Creator’s life in future snaps! The PHB will let you know if anything interesting pops up. 😀

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Remember what Poptropica looked like in September 2007 when it first launched? Don’t worry, neither do most of us. But this interesting old YouTube video (uploaded by Codien, an old friend/author of the PHB) shows us a primitive version of the game way back in the day (recording software watermark aside). Here’s a screenshot from the video:

beta-pop

Notice the ‘BETA’ beside the Poptropica logo at the top. Apparently, the game was still considered to be in a beta testing stage back then. Early Poptropica, which we see in the video, was the only island at the time. The Items and Map features are reduced to simple buttons with text – orange and purple respectively. Interesting.

On another interesting note, our friend idk has shared with us another behind-the-scenes look at a developer test room. You can see an unreleased, “under construction” cityscape in the video below:

Cool views! You can check out more developer rooms here.

Also, over on Poptropica’s social media channels – and as we saw earlier with the Snapchat story, Skinny Moon has updated her icon with some fall vibes, donning the colorful scarf from the new Fall Fashion 3 outfit and clutching a football. Nice.

skinnymoon-fall

And winners have been contacted on Twitter and Instagram for the #PoptropicaFun Halloween Photo Booth challenge! On Twitter, the winners are unhurted083, mrmontana64, and MWare55, and on Instagram, it’s happyclonetrooper. Congratulations and enjoy your 1-month memberships!

Speaking of contests, I’m doing a little giveaway in my previous post, so be sure to enter! You have until next next Tuesday, November 15th.

Stay popping, Poptropicans!

–/🐠

Contests, Merchandise

A Poptropica Package!

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans! Check out what recently came through the mail!

Somewhat recently, I won third place in the official #PoptropicaArt contest, with the prize being a 1-month membership and “a bunch of Poptropica swag.” Well, my membership is running out soon, but the swag has arrived – and I thought perhaps you might be interested in seeing what’s inside!

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As you can see, the small cardboard box that arrived contained: a Dr. Hare plush toy (see below for a little giveaway of the redeemable code!), copies of the two Poptropica graphic novels currently in print (#1: Mystery of the Map and #2: The Lost Expedition), plus Zomberry DJ decals!

The decals of Zomberry-fied DJ Saturday Nite munching away are stickers made for laptops (one made for Apple, one for other types) – as seen in this pic from Jen MacLean, a Poptropica Creator. They were nested in a page spread inside the Mystery of the Map book. Very cool.

There was another surprise waiting inside the second book, The Lost Expedition – one of the opening pages was signed! I’m assuming the signature is that of the author, Pop Creator Mitch Krpata (unless that K is for Kory Merritt, the illustrator?) (update: Poptropica clarified in a comment on this post that it’s Mitch’s signature!). Either way, pretty awesome!

And as I mentioned earlier, I’ll be giving away the redeemable code that comes with the Dr. Hare toy! Redeeming the code will give you two exclusive in-game items: the Hare Club power and Dr. Hare Plush handheld. (Learn how to redeem promo codes here.)

To enter this little giveaway, simply comment below on this post with your favorite Poptropica store item and why you like it. I’ll pick one random Poptropican from the comments to give this one-time code to! Entries will be taken up until next next Tuesday, November 15 (my birthday!).

rf_dr-hare-plush-cards

Of all the Poptropica toys out there, the Dr. Hare plush is honestly the one I’d have wanted the most – so it’s a great coincidence to have received one as part of this awesome Poptropica package! The other items are fantastic too, of course.

Thanks to the Poptropica Creators for the prize package, for hosting the art contest, and many other fun events besides! 😀 ❤ Be sure to enter the mini giveaway too (you never know if you’ll win!).

Stay popping, Poptropicans!

– slantedfish 🐠

Contests, Stolen Snapshots

Announcing the 8th Annual Autumnal-Halloween Winners!

Slanted Fish

phb-hallo16-win

Happy Halloween, Poptropicans! 🎃

The day has come for us to announce the winners of the PHB’s 8th Annual Autumnal & Halloween Contest, so here it comes. We’ve gone through your spooky and stylin’ costumes and, what with your stupendous fashion senses, it was quite the task to narrow it all down! In fact, we’ve decided to have 6 per category instead of 5 as originally announced. Here they are…

🍂 The TOP 6 Fall Costumes! 🍂

We were totally falling for these amazing fall/autumn attires. But hold on, there’s more…

🎃 The TOP 6 Halloween Costumes! 🎃

As we announced in our contest post, each of these ten twelve winners will receive a one-month Poptropica membership, courtesy of the Poptropica Creators! (Winners, keep an eye on your email.) In addition, their spiffy suit-ups will also be immortalized on the PHB’s Costumes page.

But there were so many awesome entries that we couldn’t stop here – so we’ve selected several Honorable Mention winners as well. The prize for our HMs is simply the honor of being featured here:

👻 Honorable Mentions 👻

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There’s one last Spooktober Special to get to today… the Stolen Snapshots!

Here are the anticipated answers for where each spooky snippet is to be found:

  1. Back Lot Island (the set in Studio 1)
  2. Mission Atlantis, Episode 3 (the hole made by the Leviathan)
  3. Astro-Knights Island (the candles in the secret Mordred club)
  4. Monster Carnival Island (one of the horses on the carousel)
  5. Super Power Island (the comet)
  6. Vampire’s Curse Island (the clock on top of the cinema)
  7. Zomberry Island (this is on top of the Smoothie shop)
  8. Haunted House (bathroom)
  9. Spy Island (cat in front of the spyglass shop)
  10. Ghost Story Island (cemetery)

Although nobody got all of them right, two Poptropicans did each get three right: Tall Cactus and Muddy Kid. As for those who got two or less, they are Zany Panda, 3milyCx, Shaky Skunk, and Spooky Cereal. Congratulations!

Thanks to everyone who participated in any segment of our Autumnal/Halloween competitions! We hope you enjoyed dressing up and guessing at inverted snapshots in this sp00py month of October. Congratulations to all the winners, and to every Poptropican in the neighborhood: happy Halloween!

👻 trick or treat, trick or treat 🍬
🍭 give me something good to eat! 🎃

My Place in Poptropica

My Place in Poptropica: Marci (Queen of Libraries)

Slanted Fish

This is the My Place in Poptropica story of Marci (Queen of Libraries), who discovered Poptropica while on a computer in the school library. See the bottom of this post for details on sending in your own MPIP!

mpip marci

Howdy, it’s Marci. Or as I like to also refer to myself, Queen of Libraries – like the Queen of Hearts character from Alice in Wonderland, but with libraries. Anyway, that is beside the point. Let’s get on with the MPIP, eh?

The School Library

It all started in school. The school library, to be more specific. During recess time, instead of playing with the other kids, I normally went over there to read some books, hoping for the time to go by quickly. (Hey, well, I’ve never been much of a people person.) Sometimes if I felt like it, I would hop on one of the computers to play on FunBrain.

Anyway, I decided to play on FunBrain one day, and that’s how I found Poptropica. While playing one of the minigames, I spotted one of the ads. Of course, I clicked on it. And that’s how it began. I made an account (one of which I can’t remember now), and played until I beat every island (though I can’t remember how many there were at the time).

Whoopsies, Forgot About It

However, even though I thoroughly enjoyed the game, that quickly came to an end. After I beat every island, I found that I had nothing to do on Poptropica anymore. I quit and forgot about it and found other fun things to do, like draw and write (which Poptropica previously distracted me from). I also found other games like Free Realms (which is now shut down), Wizard101, Woozworld, et cetera, and played those instead.

But let’s talk about how I re-found my love for Poptropica.

My First Sleepover

A couple years later, when I was in 5th grade, I re-discovered my love for Poptropica. At the time, I had made a friend in the same grade as me. After a month or two of being friends, she asked me if I’d like to sleep over during the weekend. So we both asked our parents if I could come over during the weekend, and they said yes.

When I got there, I saw that my friend was on the home computer. I was curious, and she must have noticed, because she gave me a funny look and said, “I’m playing Poptropica.” I couldn’t help but watch. I saw her playing islands I haven’t seen before, which wasn’t surprising since I hadn’t play the game in about two years.

Finding the PHB and Finally Getting Involved

Anyway, after sleeping over, I quickly decided to play Poptropica on my laptop. It’s no surprise I instantly fell in love with the game again, like I did before. However, I did get stuck on some islands, and looked up guides on Google. Can you guess where that brought me? The PHB, of course!

Ever since I found the PHB, I haven’t quit the game. But I haven’t been actively a part of this community, either. To change that, I decided to write this MPIP.

Once the New Poptropica comes out (I still have no clue when that might be), I look forward to creating a blog myself after years of reading the opinions, theories, and news from various Poptropicans in the community.

For now, I’ll just be hanging out on the PHB Discord server from time to time, under the name “Marci//QueenOfLibraries”. I can’t promise I’ll be on much, though. I might also try to find some time to blog, if anyone would care enough to invite me to write on one.

Anyway, this is Marci signing out. Thanks for taking the time to read this post!

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Hope you enjoyed this “My Place in Poptropica” story! Feel free to send in your own (please include a minimum of 550 words, type with good spelling and grammar, divide it into labeled sections, and include your username). Look out for more community MPIPs in the future!

~the Poptropica Help Blog