My Place in Poptropica

My Place in Poptropica: Zany Hawk

This is the My Place in Poptropica story of Zany Hawk, who found Poptropica from Funbrain’s Math Playground and has enjoyed playing with common rooms, islands, and the PHB community. See the bottom of this post for details on sending in your own MPIP!

MPIP-ZanyHawk

2008-2009 | From Math Playground to Poptropica

It all began when I was in third grade and my class was watching a Goosebumps movie. My teacher told us that if we thought it was too scary, we could go to the back and play games instead. Well, there was a dark figure with a creepy voice in that movie – so off I went to the back. A few minutes later, while I was on Funbrain, I found the game Poptropica through an advertisement and my teacher said I could play it. A friend sat next to me and we checked it out together.

The name I got in the game was Sneaky Fox, and he looked like John Travolta’s character from the film Grease. I thought, “Wow, he’s a pretty cute character!” So I went on and played Super Power Island, then Spy Island. The game seemed boring with only a few islands at the time, so I went back to Funbrain’s Math Playground. My teacher wanted us to play it to practice our math. Poptropica was always advertised when I finished a level of math, and I figured whenever I’d come back, there’d be more islands for me to play through.

2009-2011 | Fun in the Common Rooms

I made a new character, which I believe was named Smarty Dolphin or Smarty Fox, and I heard there were common rooms on the islands. I entered one, and inside it looked like a candy shop.

What shocked me at the time was that I think I may have interacted with some of the PHB authors! We played quite a few games, like Sky Dive and Soupwords. I kept doing the angry expression and other characters did the laughing emote in return. Not long afterwards, I forgot about them, and I suppose they forgot about it too.

2013-2014 | Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Other Islands

I have two Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, the first one and the do-it-yourself one. At some point, I caught wind of the fact that the author of the Wimpy Kid books, Jeff Kinney, is the creator of Poptropica. I heard a snowy Wimpy Kid island was made (Wimpy Wonderland), and decided to check that out along with Red Dragon and Big Nate Island.

However, I didn’t know what to do on the islands. All I knew how to do was go left and right to collect limited edition items or buy from the Store to customize my character.

Later, I was looking for a guide for Shrink Ray Island, which to me was very hard. I went to Google, found the Poptropica Help Blog, and used the cheats there. Back and forth, I followed the guide and played the island. I was sitting with my little sister, who liked to watch me do the animations from using Store items. At the time, I also played Shrink Shot, which was the Shrink Ray Island promo game that you could get a lot of free items from. You can still play it today.

2015–present | Together again?

I made a new Poptropican called Zany Hawk, who looks like a cartoon James Bond! I was happy to get what I think was four medallions for completing islands using Slanted Fish’s island guides. I commented on some blog posts on the PHB as well.

Even though I was internet friends with the PHB community way back then, I’ll always remember the fun and craziest times we had together. If you like my story, add me on Poptropica by searching the user BigHero6Fan1. See you next time, Poptropicans!

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). Click here to read more MPIPs, and look out for more in the future!

~the PHB.

Guest Posts, PHB Sneak Peeks

PHB Sneak Peeks: Developer Rooms, Round 2

(Hey Poptropicans! This is a guest post by glitcher TechWizard, back with more sneak peeks of developer testing rooms. Be sure to check out his first guest post for more! –SlantedFish 🐠)

Hiya guys, it’s your m8 TechWizard back again with more crazy rooms that I discovered in the behind-the-scenes world of Poptropica (how? well, that’s a secret). Man, I work too hard. You must be sick of my posts now. Are you? C’mon, be honest. Well, enough rambling, let’s get sightseeing!

Our first room is… uhh.. what’s this place? Well, it’s just a void I call the Pac-Man room. Nothing fancy here, except Pac-Man and that ominous green background… *shudders*

pacmanroom

Out next room is a collision testing room. If you like to hopelessly spam grey and orange balls, this is the place for you! You can spew out these balls to your heart’s content, and watch them interact with platforms in the space.

imonacollisioncourse

I also found yet another sound testing room – Poptropica sure loves sound testing, huh? The moon-like object here follows your cursor, and you can play some sound bytes by clicking the buttons.

Screenshot_2016-04-15-20-11-47

What else is there? Well, here’s an input testing room that tests stuff like cursors and following movements. That eyeball sure loves to stare intensively into my soul…

Screenshot_2016-04-15-20-11-50

That’s all for this post – maybe I’ll return for another post again!

Remember, reality’s an illusion, the universe is a hologram! Buy gold, Bye!

–TechWizard

Guest Posts, Popspiracy Theories

Popspiracy: Behind the Backpacker

(This is a guest post by Hyper Gamer, a PHB reader here to share some Poptropica thoughts. Keep in mind that what he presents is only theory, not to be taken as fact. If you have a Popspiracy, see below for details on guest posting! Enjoy! –SlantedFish 🐠)

popspiracy

How is everyone? It’s me Hyper Gamer. I’m here today to share a Popspiracy.

Last month, the Creators posted a Daily Pop sneak peek of this character, laden with gold and goodies, titled “Backpacker”:

sneakpeek_03-25-16
Backpacker: Time to hit the dusty trail.

Good news! The Backpacker NPC (non-player character) is finally released. He resides on Home Island, but it seems like not everyone has been able to see him there yet. You have to complete Monkey Wrench Island in order to be able to see him, but if you’ve done that, try restarting the island as well.

What does this Backpacker guy do? The Backpacker guy tells you how to get to more adventures, which is basically the blimp. Below is a gif of me interacting with this character.

backpacker

Let’s start by discussing potential reasons why the Creators decided to create this guy. Yes you might think it’s for tutorial purposes, but I think there is more to it than that. Take a look at the image below.

backpacker1

On the left is a conversation with Amelia Earhart. On the right is a conversation with Backpacker. Notice how they both have a tutorial on how to get to more adventures. Why would there be a need for two tutorials of the exact same thing?

Maybe it’s supposed to be like that, but I think the Backpacker is part of an unfinished project that lies within the realm of secret projects the Creators can’t reveal. Perhaps they released the Backpacker earlier so we would think that they were doing something. If that’s the case, Backpacker’s release was made to not seem like something random that was unfinished. It actually looks fine where it is.

Now let’s talk about his role as a character in the Poptropica world. Going back to the sneak peek, the caption says, “Time to hit the dusty trail.” Now where is this trail? Is it on another island? Now look at all that stuff he’s carrying and the medallions he’s wearing. There’s only one explanation: He’s one of us. The backpack is his inventory and the medallions he won from other islands. Now why would some great adventurer be spending his time telling us how to get to more adventures?

Let’s look at his backpack. The sword could be from one of his adventures, perhaps on Astro-Knights Island, the map appears to be the one from Mystery of the Map, and the green coins must be his credits, to name a few. What if the Backpacker saw Poptropica through our perspective? Maybe he only sees what we see. By that I mean, he can only go to the Islands that have been released. Sine he’s completed all released islands, he is at Home Island resting. It’s called “home” for a reason. Now he spends his time helping all the newcomers on their adventures while relaxing on Home Island.

He has an ax and a crystal, which could be from the Poptropica Realms. And here’s another thought: he must be a paid member. He has membership, so he has no use for credits. That’s why he has so many green coins (credits) in his sack. Also, only members-only items have goggles like the pair he’s wearing. Sure, they may look a bit different (perhaps greener for those items based on Dr. Hare) on the item cards, but that’s a very small thing to worry about.

What do you guys think? Is the Backpacker part of something bigger? Is he Poptropica’s first NPC to break the fourth wall? Write back with your thoughts in the comments!

-Hyper Gamer

Share your Pop conspiracies in the comments or on the PHC – we’d love to hear them. If you’d like to develop it into a full guest post like this one, contact the PHB (minimum 500 words). Stay popping!

My Place in Poptropica

My Place in Poptropica: Cuddly Knuckle

This is the My Place in Poptropica story of Cuddly Knuckle, a Poptropican active in the community with his own Poptropica blog. See the bottom of this post for details on sending in your own MPIP!

cuddlyknuckle

Hey guys and girls, I saw many people on the PHB sharing their “My Place in Poptropica” story, so I decided to send mine in as well. 🙂 Here we go!

2008 | Discovery

I was in third grade back when my mother showed me an educational site called FunBrain. When I saw FunBrain, there it was – the ad for Poptropica. I saw that the characters looked kind of cute and the game looked fun to play. So I went on the site, made my first account, and completed some islands for several days.

That is, until I got stuck in a hard island and lost interest in playing Poptropica a few weeks later. 😦

2011 | Cuddly’s Birth

A few years later, I did come back to Poptropica, and I forgot my old account’s username from not playing Pop for so long. I was so unhappy about my old account, and I had to make a new one. Yeah, I know, it’s so sad losing Poptropica accounts. 😦

After choosing my gender and age during the new account creation, he exploded out of the box: Cuddly Knuckle. I gave him the username “hesnothappy”, since I was so unhappy because I lost my old account, stuck on a hard island with his username forgotten. With Cuddly, I completed so many islands (the first I’ve beaten was Spy Island, for those who didn’t friend me 😛 ).

2012 | Finding the PHB

I became so involved in Poptropica, I started to google it and found many Pop blogs to comment on. And then I found it: the PHB. I started to talk to the authors and readers and read all the awesome posts and pages, especially the guides and the Magazines. It was so fun, and eventually after visiting the PHB a lot, I came to admire the PHB, the best Poptropica blog ever.

2014 | Joining the Blogging Community

Using a sibling’s email address, I finally created my own WordPress account and made my first blog. I didn’t want to post anything because I had school stuff to work on, and sadly deleted it since I lost interest in blogging a few weeks later. 😦 I still browsed other Pop blogs, though! 🙂

But later that year, I REALLY made a blog. I started to gain a SO MUCH interest in blogging, I made another blog on WordPress called Cuddly Knuckle’s Poptropica Blog (CKPB), and made my first three posts. However, I stopped posting a few days later because nobody viewed it or ‘liked’ the posts. This made me feel very lonely. 😦

2015 | The Most Awesome Year

After another month of reading other Pop blogs and commenting on the posts and pages, I went back to posting on the CKPB, with even more viewers and followers than before as well as some fellow authors helping to make more posts in the blog and make it better.

I also had a great time with Poptropica – my first Realms creation was featured on the second new Realms banner on the Poptropica homepage with five other creations! I also finished all the islands, and I had a great time playing this game. It was so awesome! 😀

I would like to thank all the PHB staff and everyone in the Poptropica community for admiring me for so many great years. The PHB is the very best Poptropica blog in the world, and I hope I will never, ever, stop reading all the Poptropica blogs or playing the awesome game. Keep up the good work, guys! You all are so awesome! ❤

I’m Cuddly Knuckle a.k.a Wilbur, and this is My Place is Poptropica. 😎

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.

PHB Sneak Peeks

PHB Sneak Peeks: Unreleased Costumes, Quiz Game, & More

Hey Poptropicans, the PHB is back at it again with behind-the-scenes Poptropica findings! This post is made possible with the help of glitchers TechWizard and idk (formerly Hyper SW). Let’s begin.

First, from idk: unreleased app costumes! The costumes are: Mummy, Carnival Kid, Pirate, Parasailing, Creepy Turkey, Ring Leader, Bear Costume, Old Diving Suit, Zombie, and Scarecrow. Quite a few of these have not been seen in the game before. Others have been seen online. (*PHB reader Infinity App Nerd notes that the Mummy and Scarecrow are on the app.) Which ones do you like?

unreleased app costumes

Among the files, this never-released Survival Merit Hat was also discovered. Notice the five symbols pertaining to the five episodes of Survival Island. Wonder what this could have been for!

survival merit hat

Also, here’s a look at a Poptropica Quiz Game! Longtime PHB readers may remember when Codien briefly covered some findings of the same game years ago, then thought to be a game coming soon – but at this point, it seems more like another idea lost to time.

Our picture supplier idk compiled a couple of albums full of images from the files for this game, which you can find here and here. Here are a few of the more interesting pictures:

Plus, a couple of extra now-visible pages from The Mystical Weapons of Arturus on Astro-Knights Island have also been discovered! These last two pages of the book, which are half-covered in-game, can now be seen in full.

Here we have the idea that worthiness of the weapons comes from great strength, valor, and… an affinity for animals, because the love would bring the warrior to new levels. Say what? The other page speaks of a wizard named Borzo, whose elixir could cure heart burn, but the King and Queen were not convinced that it was legendary enough. Also, a man named Klaudius tried to… well, it ends there. Strange stories.

This interesting room was also found behind-the-scenes… what an aesthetic background.

bg

But weird rooms seem to be the specialty of another glitcher: TechWizard. Let’s see what else is new.

Something else he discovered behind-the-scenes is a projectile test room. The contents are a cannon-like object, a non-functioning cannon object, and a projectile shooter that shoots green pellets. Pressing spacebar in this room allows you to shoot dots. Think it’s cooler than Tetris Land from Tech’s last post?

projectile room

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this behind-the-scenes peek – for more posts like this that have come up recently, check out the PHB sneak peeks of the Zomberry Mini-Games and Development Testing Rooms! And if you like playing around with Poptropica’s files, be sure to check out the glitching community on the PHC’s #glitchers channel for more uncovered secrets!

Stay popping, Poptropicans!

–🐠🐠