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!
Guest Posts, StoryArc Media

“Adventure Pig” App Review with Poptropicans!

Slanted Fish

(This is a guest post co-written by Poptropicans Tall Cactus and Marshmallow about the new game Adventure Pig, released by Poptropica’s parent company, StoryArc Media. Enjoy!)

adventurepig

Hey, PHB readers! Tall Cactus here (I’m the one on the left above, and Marshmallow is on the right). If you have gone on Pop recently, you may have noticed the Adventure Pig ads. You know, the app being made by StoryArc Media, Poptropica’s new-ish parent company. Adventure Pig released to the Netherlands and Ireland less than two months ago, but now – good news, it has released worldwide!

And, don’t forget about me! Marshy’s here too, with more information on the new app! After downloading, and seeing the StoryArc Media logo, you might recognize the background music from somewhere familiar: it’s the starting music to the Poptropica app, with some trumpet mixed in there too.

Yeah, and the clicking noise is the exact same as the Poptropica app’s. Oh well, the music that actually plays during the game levels sounds original, at least.

You also get to choose your age at the beginning of the game, possibly to set the difficulty throughout the game. You can choose ages 1 through 99, so I’m pretty sure this is available for the whole family, as the description of the game says. There are 150 levels in all, and they seem pretty basic. Your goal is to get the Adventure Pig to land safely on the landing without touching the mud. You click on items underneath the pig to have him fall all the way to the landing at the bottom. There’s also a chicken next to Adventure Pig… you might get an extra star for having the chicken land safely, but we’re pretty sure if the chicken lands in the mud, it won’t affect your score.

It’s actually a bit harder than it looks, at least for me! (Marshmallow seems to be much better at it.)

You can download Adventure Pig from the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store for Androids. There is a free version of the app, and an ad-free that costs US$1.99. For the purpose of this guest post, I went ahead and downloaded the free version, but free to buy the full version if you really love the game. There are currently 4 chapters, with 40 levels total.

Even though I’m still stuck on Level 4 (don’t judge), you can see that up ahead there are some different settings for your pig to land in, such as Swine Dining in a restaurant and Pig Apple (Big Apple) in a city like New York. Sounds cool!

You can even find a list of StoryArc Media people – some of them Poptropica Creators as well (Nate Greenwall, Mitch Krpata, Jen MacLean, Jennifer Wood…) – in the credits! Others on the list may or may not be as well, but we’re not so sure.

adventurepig4

Another thing is, the graphics of the game are actually really nice looking, except for the pig and chicken’s creepy eyes, of course! That, Marshy had to keep pointing out. While it looks similar to Poptropica, it seems a little different. Is this what the New Poptropica’s graphics will be like?

Final Thoughts

Tall Cactus: While this game has great graphics and can be a challenging puzzle game, I’m kinda bored by it. There isn’t really a story for it or anything. Then again, this is a game that’s meant to be played for short periods of time, and it’s probably meant for younger kids (it says ages 9-11 in the App Store description). So if you’re bored somewhere, you want a challenge and you like pig puns, this game is for you. But if you’re home for a long period of time on your desktop computer, you should just play more Poptropica.

Marshmallow: It actually seems like a pretty fun spin of a simple game mechanic, because there are games pretty similar this on the App Store. So, I would say, nice job, StoryArc Media! But, please, make level 7 a little easier. I’m already stuck this early in the game! 😛

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Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Tall Cactus and Marshmallow! 

The PHB welcomes guest posting from anyone in our community if you have something to share, whether it be sneak peeks, My Place in Poptropica stories, or any other ideas you might have. We also encourage sharing on our subreddit and the PHC.

If you have an idea for a guest post, send it in to [email protected]! 🙂

Contests, Poppies

Unveiling… The Poppies 2016!

Slanted Fish

Poppies2016-Nominations

*majestically brandishes unicorn horn wand in the air*

Welcome, ladies and gentlepoptropicans, to the second year of the Poptropica Community Awards, affectionately known around here as The Poppies! I’m your host, Slanted Fish, and I’m here to explain this whole shebang. Don’t mind my flowing fishy kimono, it’s all part of the show! As you can see by the site header, the PHB team dresses well for the occasion – and we sure hope you’ll join us!

If you were around for the first Poppies last year, you might remember how this works. The Poppies begins with a round of nominations for potential winners of certain award categories, this begins today and will end next Friday, July 15. This round will be followed by a round of voting once nominations are narrowed down, this will take place between July 16 and July 22. And finally, we’ll be announcing the winners as we celebrate the PHB’s upcoming 8th birthday on July 26th, 2016.

First up is the nomination round. How this works is we’ll announce each award category, followed by a brief description (see below). In order to keep nominations a surprise, we’ll be doing it a bit different this year: you put your nominations in a survey, and the Poppies team will take a look at the most popular nominations, as well as give their own input on deserving options, to create the voting options for the next round. Start filling in the survey now!

You can nominate for as many or as little awards as you like. Plus if you want to, let everyone know in the comments section who or what you feel is worth an award! To strengthen your nomination, you can also include a quick reason why you think they (or it) deserve(s) the award.

Without further ado, the awards up for grabs are:

  1. Best Poptropica Character: Whether it’s a jolly fellow on Main Street wishing you well or the biggest, baddest villain of the island, which NPC (non-player character) would you vote as the ultimate best created character? From character costume to execution, this category may be broad, but it’s your chance to pick your favorites for “Poptropican of the Year”! (Note: Don’t nominate fellow players.)
  2. Best Popular Island: Poptropica defines the most popular islands on their homepage as the following: Wimpy Boardwalk, Poptropolis Games, Mystery Train, Shrink Ray Island, Wimpy Wonderland, Cryptids Island, Skullduggery Island, Mythology Island, Astro-Knights Island, Spy Island, Super Power Island, 24 Carrot Island, Time Tangled Island, and Shark Tooth Island. Nominate your favs!
  3. Best New Island: Poptropica defines the newest islands on their homepage as the 17 most recent islands, which includes the following: Monkey Wrench, Escape From Pelican Rock, Timmy Failure, Mystery of the Map, Galactic Hot Dogs, Arabian Nights, PoptropiCon, Mission Atlantis, Survival, Monster Carnival, Mocktropica, Virus Hunter, Back Lot, Night Watch, Zomberry, Super Villain, and Lunar Colony. Nominate the best from the list!
  4. Best Classic Island: Poptropica defined the rest of the islands as “Classic,” so many among this list are memorable islands. These include: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Twisted Thicket, Vampires Curse, S.O.S., Ghost Story, Game Show, Red Dragon, Wild West, Great Pumpkin, Steamworks, Reality TV, Counterfeit, Big Nate, and Nabooti. Which ones were the greatest?
  5. Best Sponsored Island: Some of Poptropica’s islands are “sponsored”, meaning they are created with another franchise in mind (i.e. not Poptropica originals). These include: Nabooti, Big Nate, Great Pumpkin, Wimpy Wonderland, Red Dragon, Wimpy Boardwalk, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Galactic Hot Dogs, and Timmy Failure. Which one is most worthy of being played?
  6. Best Poptropican Name: What Poptropican name combination sounds the best? For a list of possible Poptropica names, click here. (Last year’s winner was Golden Dragon.)
  7. Best Soundtrack from a New Island: Which of Poptropica composer Jeff Heim’s soundtracks deserve the title of ‘best’ with regards to islands that were released with music? (These SUIs, or sound-updated islands, would be Virus Hunter and any island that came out after it.)
  8. Best Soundtrack from a Remade Island: A few of the Poptropica favorites have been remade from non-SUI to SUI over time, giving each some impressive music that followed your adventures. These are: Time Tangled, 24 Carrot, Mythology, Poptropolis Games, and Shrink Ray. Pick a soundtrack from these islands that you think stands out!

In addition to Poptropica-specific awards, there are also categories for those in the Poptropica community/fandom that you know and love!

  1. Best Current PHB Author (besides Slanted Fish): We’ve got a host of staff members here who regularly deliver news and other improvements to the PHB, but everyone’s different in their own way. The current staff are Brave Tomato, HPuterpop, Mighty Gamer, Spotted Dragon, Slanted Fish, Slippery Raptor, Ultimate iPad Expert, and Ylimegirl – and all of us (except me, as I won last year) are automatically nominated!
  2. Best Former PHB Author: Outside of the current PHB staff, which PHB author of the past do you think served this community the best? You can find a list of all of them, with their names linked to their posts, under the “Past PHB Authors” section of our About page. Shout out the ones who you want to win!
  3. Best ASG: We’ve got a plethora of ASGs (Avatar Studio Glitch-able accounts) over on our Avatar Studio Gift page, a haven for glitchers. Of the hundreds of ASGs available, which deserves the title of ‘best’?
  4. Best Active Fan Blog (outside of the PHN): The Poptropica Help Network includes this blog, the PHC (chat), our Twitter, videos, and wiki, but outside of our network lies a realm of other Poptropica fan sites as well. Nominate your favorites – just to be clear, this is for blogs that aren’t included in the list mentioned in the previous sentence. This category looks for sites that are currently active.
  5. Best Fan Art of 2016: Poptropican artists the world over have created many pieces of fan art, but which pieces have you seen that might deserve the title of ‘best’? The PHB magazines and our DeviantArt group are good places to start scouting for fan art! This category looks for works that were created/published in the year 2016, to give more current Pop artists a chance at the award.
  6. Best PMFM Round: Here on the PHB, Ultimate iPad Expert works hard to deliver yet another round of Poptropican Meme Face Mondays every week. Of the 30+ rounds that have premiered on this blog, which is the best? (Look back on every PMFM here!)
  7. Community Appreciation Award: Outside of the PHB staff past and present, many amazing Poptropicans make up our community, whether they’re frequent commenters, fan artists, PHC regulars, fan bloggers, or just someone well known in the online Poptropica community. Tell us who you appreciate most!

Now for some funny awards!

  1. Okay-est Island: Not the best, not the worst… just okay. Which island in the vast seas of Poptropica makes you go “eh, that was ok, I guess” – neither impressing nor disappointing you, and that you wouldn’t really miss if it were (gasp) taken out of the game?
  2. Funniest Poptropican Name: You have to admit, Poptropica names can get pretty ridiculous sometimes. But which combination of words that form Poptropica names is the silliest of them all? (Last year’s winner for “Worst” Name: Big Belly.)
  3. Weirdest Poptropica Moment: So you’ve seen a lot of things in your adventures on Poptropica. What takes the cake for the strangest of them all? Was it when you crossed a wide chasm on a horde of Narfs in Mocktropica? Or maybe Katya and Christopher’s kiss at the end of Vampire’s Curse? You decide!

Nominations will take place starting now, so sound off in the survey who or what you think deserves the awards! Please limit your nominations to a maximum of three per award.

If no nominations for a certain award are made, the Poppies team will use their own judgment to come up with some options. Next week’s poll options will be based on the most popular nominations, so check back then for the next round and cast your votes then! Plus, stay tuned on the PHB for details on our next birthday party and winner announcements. But for now…

Start nominating on our Nomination Survey!

Keep popping in for the Poppies going on throughout this month!

My Place in Poptropica

My Place in Poptropica: Clean Shark

Slanted Fish

This is the My Place in Poptropica story of Clean Shark, who began playing Poptropica since it first began and enjoys being part of the community. See below for details on sending in your own MPIP!

mpip clean shark

2007-2008 | Poptropica’s Early Days

Back in 2007, I frequently visited the Funbrain website. I found an advertisement for this thing called Poptropica. My older sister told me that she played this game at school a lot, and she introduced it to me. I decided to try it out, immediately got hooked, and played it frequently, even though the only island was Early Poptropica at the time. I remember there not being a blimp at all.

I wondered if the game would ever update with something new, and I think I saw a “Coming Soon: Shark Tooth Island” on the home page. That got me excited, and soon enough Shark Tooth came out. It was fantastic, even though I didn’t know how to beat it for a while. However, I figured it out and I replayed that and Early Poptropica frequently.

Now that there was a blimp and a map, I could see the upcoming islands, Time Tangled and Monster Carnival. I knew that I would enjoy this game for a long time. Island after Island came out, and the game just got bigger and better. I figured out how to save my account, and I got costumes from the new Poptropica Store. It felt amazing.

2009-2011 | That Unimportant Middle Part

Honestly, nothing truly interesting happened during these years. Sure, the map was enormous and I completed every island using the Official Poptropica Guidebook, but other than that I don’t really remember anything too interesting going on.

I think the coolest thing that happened at this time was when Wimpy Wonderland came out, because I was a huge Diary of a Wimpy Kid fan at the time, and seeing my favorite book and favorite game come together was amazing.

2012-2013 | Discovering the Community

Twisted Thicket Island, I swear. I wanted to beat it so badly since it had just come out, but I had no clue how to complete it. Just when I was about to give up, I realized something: What if I just looked up a guide on the internet?

It was then that I found the Poptropica Help Blog. I looked around and found the guide to Twisted Thicket, and I soon joined the community as “clean shark”. Not the most interesting name, heh. I used guides on tons of islands I didn’t know how to complete, and I knocked out every single one. It felt amazing.

Through the PHB, I found out all sorts of stuff about Poptropica. I learned about the Mystery of Monster Carnival Island, the island that had disappeared years before. I found out all sorts of information about Poptropica. I was completely invested.

2014-2015 | Losing Interest

Before this time, I thought I’d never stop playing Poptropica. Boy, was I wrong! About a couple of years later, I just completely lost interest in the game. I started thinking the game was becoming terrible, with episodic islands and such. I could care less about it, but I occasionally logged on to keep my account active, since I had some valuable stuff in it.

However, the Poptropica Help Blog introduced me to communities on the Internet, and I eventually made friends online on sites like Google+. I didn’t know if I’d ever come back to Poptropica, but I thought I might since I knew people regain interest in stuff they liked when they were younger. And speaking of regaining interest…

2016 | Returning to Poptropica

Near the end of the school year, I found Poptropica on the App Store. Since I easily got bored at school, I downloaded the app and played some of the older, classic Islands on there, 24 Carrot and Time Tangled respectively (now converted to SUIs – sound updated islands).

I saw a new Island called “Escape from Pelican Rock”, and it was about breaking out of prison. I thought it sounded rather interesting, and so I played it. I fell in love with it, and I thought that perhaps I was wrong about Poptropica going downhill. I played the other Islands like PoptropiCon, which I loved as well.

After that, I decided to return to the Poptropica Help Blog to get out of spots where I got stuck, and I eventually came back into the community. I have a bad habit of typing overly-long comments, though, haha. I’m a pretty big fan of Poptropica again and I’m eager to see how Poptropica 2.0 turns out.

To conclude, I’m a longtime fan of Poptropica, and being in the Poptropica community led me to become an internet star! (not really… just kinda well known on Google+…) Anyway, my name is Clean Shark, and this was My Place in Poptropica!

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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 PHB

Creators, Guest Posts, PHB Sneak Peeks

PHB Sneak Peeks: Quick Q&A with Creator & More Dev Rooms!

Slanted Fish

(This is a guest post by TechWizard, in which he shares a quick interview he had with Pop Creator Skinny Moon, as well as some more developer rooms from Poptropica’s files. Enjoy! –🐠)

tw guestpost

Hello Poptropicans! T—wait a minute, has someone been messing with my notecards? Well then…

Anyway, hello Poptropicans, TechWizard here with rooms, graphical bugs, and a quick question-and-answer session with a chubby sun! …No, not a chubby sun, a Skinny Moon! That’s right, it’s dat girl! I asked her a few random questions, and this is what I got. Her replies are italicized below.

> What’s the best part about working at Poptropica HQ?

I love being the social media manager and interacting with the fans. It really is so great seeing how much you all love Poptropica and how much you care about it! Also, the entire Poptropica team is AWESOME! Everyone is so creative and truly cares about the game and its fans.

> Do you like Pringles? If so, what’s your favorite flavor?

I like sour cream and onion best!

> Do you drink any soda?

I used to love Diet Coke but I don’t drink it much anymore. I drink a lot of half iced tea-half lemonade. And coffee. Lots of coffee. 🙂

> Satellite or cable?

Cable — Verizon FIOS!

For more Q&As with Chubby Sun Skinny Moon, check out this PHB post as well as this one!

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Well, hope you enjoyed that little Q&A with Skinny Moon! Onto the next part: I’ll be showing some more developer rooms from Poptropica’s files. (Please note: These are not meant to show up in-game, and are used by Pop developers for testing.)

Our first room is actually an add-on to a mass dialogue room I showed in another guest post here. In this room, you can receive a crowbar to take to a crowbar-loving NPC (non-player character) who’s offscreen. This is to test item receiving and giving.

room5

Our second room looks like a roller coaster. Not much goes on, except for some boxes and orb things that randomly spawn here.

room4

Our third room is… oh no! Where’s the floor?! Well, it’s invisible, and talking to an off screen Afro Guy will change the tile-set that’s visible here.

room3

But wait, that’s not all! Call now and I’ll throw in one graphical bug for the low, *low* price of $20.99!

While playing around one day with a secret rectangle capable of infinite powers, I stumbled upon this lovely bug. Where is the crystal? Where is the throne?? Let me explain!

Obviously, you’re not intended to be here after you’ve finished PoptropiCon: Episode 3 (but by my ways, here I am). Because the game doesn’t know what to do here, some parts don’t load, mainly because Omegon’s throne and crystal have been destroyed.

room2

That’s all for this time – hope you enjoyed this post!

– TechWizard

My Place in Poptropica

My Place in Poptropica: Messy Knuckle

Slanted Fish

This is the My Place in Poptropica story of Messy Knuckle, a hardworking Poptropican who overcame her fears for tough Islands. See the bottom of this post for details on sending in your own MPIP!

mpip messyknuckle

2010-2011 | Watching Boys Play & Figuring Things Out

The way I found out about Poptropica was thanks to some boys from my class. I was in first grade at the time. During lunch breaks, they opened the game through the teacher’s computer and reflected the screen to the smart board. At first I didn’t really care about whatever they were doing, and chose to watch them play instead of play it myself. I watched them complete some of the Poptropica islands, and sometimes teased them discouragingly to make them mad.

One day, for no reason I can think of, I decided to make my own account at home and complete the island that they had completed in school, but on my own. The island was S.O.S. Island, by the way. I felt like I accomplished something very important when I managed to finish it, because I was so frustrated in the underwater places. My English was also pretty bad at the time, so I couldn’t understand most of the dialogue.

Sadly, after a while, the teachers’ computers no longer accepted student accounts and Poptropica was blocked from the school internet, so my school hobby to watch Poptropica gameplay became history.

With the naivety of a first-grade student, I made the mistake of continuously pressing “New Character” instead of “Returning Character”, losing all the progress from previous accounts, and ending up making like ten unnecessary accounts in the process. However, I eventually figured out that I should keep using the Returning Character button, and as I played more, I got addicted, then got a membership.

2012-2013 | The Rise and Fall

Over time, I became very good at Poptropica, due to getting used to the mechanics and getting used to the English. In fact, I had improved to the point that I started making deals with kids at school – I would complete an island for them, if they completed one for me. We exchanged usernames and passwords, and changed passwords after the job was finished.

However, there came a point where I started to play less and less, due to the classic reasons of finding the game boring or having other things to do because of my parents. I started becoming much of a coward when it came to Poptropica, unable to finish the islands whenever I thought I couldn’t win the boss battle. Because of this, partially-finished islands like Steamworks Island and Mystery Train were left unfinished for years on my account. I just spent most of my time wandering around already-finished islands, or leaving the browser open for hours without doing anything.

Eventually I got addicted to another children’s game I was addicted to way before, and forgot about Poptropica in the process.

Late 2014 | Remembering

The way I remembered this game I so adore is… interesting, I guess. I remembered it on the last day of summer school. Our “lesson” involved computers, and the teachers allowed us to play games. What I realized was that half the people were playing Poptropica, much to my surprise.

I decided to assist one of the kids in a place they were stuck in on Poptropica, and soon enough, everyone starting asking for help at the same time. I took full advantage of this – of course – and bragged about my Poptropica knowledge, in an indirect way. I had even made up this quote: “You’re talking with the master of Poptropica!” And I felt like I was so cool too!

Since that was the last day of summer school, I could freely play Poptropica during the remaining time of the summer holiday. I used the time to find ways to convince my parents to buy me membership again.

Interlude: Poptropica Friend

I also had a real life friend who would play Poptropica with me. This friend is actually a girl I met before. Her mother used to come to our house on weekdays to look after me (basically a nanny) while my parents were at work, and she sometimes came with her. I always came home excited, hoping to see her either inside or hiding behind the doorway. I introduced her to Poptropica, and we started working together to complete islands for her account.

When she made the account, she had told me the username and password so I could get some work done every so often. Currently, I don’t know of her whereabouts, though it looks like she isn’t playing anymore. Her account was untouched for like two years, and the appearance of her Poptropican is still the same today.

Late 2015 to Early 2016 | Getting Stuff Done

When it came to Poptropica, my inspirations were Thinknoodles and Graser10, whose videos I watched to help me complete Island quests. Even though there are no islands left for me to complete now, I still adore Thinknoodles’ channel, and seeing his failed attempts at solving Islands in his RTCT (Road to Captain Thinknoodles) series makes me laugh.

I completed like 20 islands during this time period, and save beautiful outfits to my closet, ready to be worn anytime (as long as I’m a member, of course).

I also got over my fears and completed those islands I was too afraid to return to – and I was impressed with myself that I could finish them on the first try. In fact, I sometimes got so bored that I restarted some semi-hard islands and re-completed them.

2016 – now | PHB & A Little Encouragement

Very recently, I stumbled upon the Poptropica Help Blog while looking for the Avatar Studio Glitch. I found out about the actual glitch itself through a fan-made Poptropica wiki, where they talked about it a little bit when they explained their costume-collecting method. I started making my own ASG accounts (such as SanyakuASG and ShrinkShotSpikerock) and used the existing ASGs to create new combinations.

With all Island Medallions in hand, and a full closet, I think I’m ready for the future of Poptropica – the New Poptropica, which the Creators hinted to us to through a gif of Poptropican feet on the Creators’ Blog. I’m excited for it. Hopefully it isn’t terrible!

shoeAnimate

Well, what about you guys? Have you finished all the islands you’ve been trying to finish? If you have, I am happy for you. I like it when people accomplish things. But if you couldn’t, don’t focus too hard on it. Just like all (well, “most”) games, the main purpose of this one is to enjoy. Don’t get mad because of an island! Be happy with how far you have come, and ignore the rest. That’s what I did!

As you can see on my account “perin10”, with all medals, a full closet, and over a hundred photos, you can tell I worked hard. But I wouldn’t work for it if I didn’t enjoy it, would I? Right, I wouldn’t.

I like Poptropica so I’m not leaving it. What about you? Will you keep playing the game?

Love you all,

– Messy Knuckle

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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 PHB