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!
PHB Specials

Poptropica at the Game Developers’ Conference!

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans! 😀

I recently came across a couple of interesting Poptropica PowerPoint presentations by Christopher Barney, a Creator thought to be Triton. These were made for the Game Developers’ Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of professional video game developers.

In 2013, Chris spoke on the topic of Poptropica Friends, and in 2015, the talk was on Poptropica Realms. As you go through these PowerPoints, you may already be familiar with some of the info presented, but keep in mind that this was for other game-makers who may not know much about Poptropica. While there are a lot of slides to sift through, it’s still worth a look!

GDC 2013 | 100 Million Friends You Can Never Know

In this Poptropica Friends presentation, we see the inside of the Creators’ process in creating the Friends feature. Below are some of the more interesting slides (it looks like a lot, but this is only part of it!). Click to enlarge the images, or click here view the full presentation!

Interspersed between some neat graphics, we can find a lot of information:

  • Pop Quizzes were originally going to be text-based.
  • Photos were made to reward progress as players went through islands. More than that, they were originally going to be Badges! This explains (as we can see on one of the slides) a sneak peek of Badge Albums we uncovered years ago.
  • The Creators carefully considered our experience with ads, and decided to spare us from bad ad placement. We appreciate it!
  • One slide shows a scene that appears to be from Shark Tooth Island, but there’s a hay tipi beside an “Enter Poptropica” sign that goes to the blimp. Is this an early idea for account creation?
  • Early designs for the Friends feature was Facebook-like with several vertical screens, and a player room with platforms was also considered (not sure how this may be different from common rooms).
  • The Map was originally going to have zooming, but it was too disorienting.
  • Girls are likelier than boys to change their mood on their profile. Happy and excited are the most popular moods. Bashful is the least popular.
  • Some Poptropicans choose a different country identity than where they’re from. (Side note: Why do they recognize Hong Kong as its own ‘country’ here, yet Hong Kong is not an option in the actual game when you select your country on your profile?)
  • Tribe members’ “play habits” conform to the theme of the tribe they’re in.
  • Tribal home pages and challenges may be coming in the future.

2015 | Turning 100,000,000 Friends Into Game Developers

A couple of years later, Chris presented a sequel to the previous talk, this time focusing on Poptropica Realms and how it adds user-generated content to Poptropica. Check out some of these noteworthy slides, or click here view the full presentation!

Some interesting takeaways from this presentation include:

  • There are about 8 million active users on Poptropica per month.
  • “Success makes innovation harder.” Hmm, food for thought.
  • Realms was created in part to give a new gameplay experience that still felt “Poptropica”.
  • Poptropica has to prioritize COPPA standards (children’s online privacy) when they allowing any form of sharing/user content.
  • Realms was originally thought of as a single infinite random world, and eventually became many worlds.
  • There’s some technology jargon in there for those interested.
  • Not everything went right the first try: prototypes had no tutorial, intros were too long or short, etc.
  • They sure got this right though: “Raising our (under age) players’ desire for membership does not increase their parents’ desire to buy it for them.”
  • Earlier Realms designs lacked a strong art style, player progression, motivation to build, and narrative direction.
  • Limited features meant there was not a lot to do for the less creatively-inclined player.
  • On average, Realms players spend over twice as much time on the site than those playing islands. Among the stats, 1.4 million players use Realms.
  • Sharing Realms would take more time to implement, so they held off on releasing that feature. Lots of public Realms have been visited, but only by about 30,000 users (not a lot compared to the other statistics).
  • Future plans include tying Realms with Friends, catering to more player types, multi-user Realms, tying island gameplay to Realms, and more.
  • Out of about 40 developers at Poptropica, the team dedicated to Realms is capped at 4, so that others could work on other Poptropica projects outside of Realms.
  • Chris Barney thinks it’s funny to end his presentations with an image of the Jersey Devil, often cited by players as one of the scariest Poptropica moments.

Well, that concludes these fascinating Poptropica presentations from a game developer’s perspective! Hope you enjoyed these insights! 😀

Stay popping, Poptropicans. 🐠🐠

Realms, Social Media

Realms Deviated, Skinny Moon Rises

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans!

As some of you may have noticed, a few days ago, Realms disappeared from the map! A new post on the Creators’ Blog explains what’s going on: they’re fixing a glitch. From the words of the Captain:

Never fear, Poptropicans, because all the Realms you created are safe — they’re only temporarily unavailable. In our latest update to Poptropica, a bug in the code base disabled Realms. We’re actively working on squashing this pesky bug and restoring Realms as quickly as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience and will update you as soon as we have more information.

We’re not sure when Realms will be back, but we hope it’s soon! 🙂 Better go enjoy Poptropica’s latest update (Valentine’s Photo Booth) instead – after all, look what it cost to get that up. 😛

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Meanwhile on social media, Skinny Moon/Jessica (Poptropica’s social media person) recently had another spontaneous common room party, where she brought out her pink guitar! We missed it, but Poptropican tweeter Josh (@IcyStorm9) was there and shared a picture.

Speaking of Skinny Moon, I recently drew her Popsona (Poptropica persona) and shared it on Twitter and DeviantArt. Not long after seeing it, she joined DeviantArt as PopGirlJess and became a member of a couple of dA Poptropica groups, including the one the PHB uses, We-Love-Poptropica!

skinnymoon

So if you’re a Poptropica artist (or an aspiring one), you might just see her around the DeviantArt community, especially if you post to the group We-Love-Poptropica! New members are always welcome, so if you enjoy art (whether it’s commenting or making), definitely check it out. (And visit Jessica’s dA page too, because she loves her fans!) Welcome to DeviantArt, Skinny Moon!

Stay awesome, Poptropicans. 😀

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My Place in Poptropica

My Place in Poptropica: White Gamer

Slanted Fish

This is the My Place in Poptropica story of White Gamer, a Poptropica explorer with a story to tell. See the bottom of this post for details on sending in your own MPIP!

MyPlaceInPoptropica-WhiteGamer

Sharing Accounts With Sis

It was around 2007 when I was first introduced to the game. My sister and I had just finished our homework (I was in second grade back then, so I didn’t have very much). She told me that there was a game she was interested in that other kids at school were playing called “Poptropica”. We found it on Funbrain, a website we were familiar with.

That day, we made an account together, with the username apples2928. (If you friend our account, please don’t judge on our fashion sense. We were new to the game!) We weren’t quite sure what to do until a few days after we made our account. Then, as we figured out how to explore Poptropica, things got pretty exciting.

Getting My Own Account

After a couple of months, I started getting a little tired of Poptropica, so I thought I would make a new account, just for myself. This was partly because at the time my sister and I, playing on our one account called Purple Wolf, didn’t know how to take different outfits off and put new ones on. Now, I really don’t remember the username or in-game name of the new account I made, out of the many I’ve made.

Anyway, from then on, I started to love Poptropica more and more! I had about two pages of Store items, and was slowly making my way up to getting island medallions. I changed my outfit almost every time I got on the game, which was about every other day at least.

Soon, I started looking up a few game guides and Thinknoodles quickly became my top choice – that is, until I saw the Poptropica Help Blog! For the first time, I was seeing Slanted Fish, Brave Tomato, HPuterpop, Samwow5, Spotted Dragon, and the rest of the crew. PHB was the best. I started checking updates on the website every time I got on the computer.

Becoming White Gamer

Sadly, I took a break from Poptropica for a while, and forgot my username and password. Ahhh! I made a new account, woodstock436, and with that, White Gamer was officially a player of Poptropica. I chose the name because I’m a Poptropica Gamer.

For a long time, I tried to find a signature outfit for myself, but I couldn’t find one. I’m sorry to say that I even copied Slanted Fish’s outfit for a little while. By the time the PHB’s 2015 Halloween Costume Contest came around, I still hadn’t found one. I know: that’s a long time to be thinking about an outfit, but I’m all about fashion.

PoptropiCon Island had recently come out, and I saw the gray planet shirt and red jacket. At first glance, I didn’t really care, but later I thought, you know what? That’s cool. I’m going to use that. I used the shirt and jacket, and combined that with angel wings, headphones, a polka-dot belt, and jeans. Yay! Now I’m officially a Poptropica Explorer with Fashion.

In 2014, I mostly spent my time in Poptropica Common Rooms – probably a little too much. Like, that was all I was doing on Poptropica besides the new islands like PoptropiCon, Survival, and Arabian Nights. Those were awesome too.

I am still doing a lot of islands, and now have 30 medallions, plus I’m keeping up with PHB as best as I can. I hope you enjoyed My Place in Poptropica! Thank you!

–White Gamer 🙂

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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.

PHB Specials, Pop-over

PHB Pop-over Special: Gravity Falls Gang!

Slanted Fish

Gravitate over here, Poptropicans – it’s time for another PHB Special*!

(*Side note: PHB Specials are a category of posts that can pertain to a variety of things. You may be familiar with Blake’s Special scripts, for instance, of which the most recent is the Valentine’s Special.)

Many of us here at the PHB are fans of Gravity Falls (a Disney TV show), and if you are too, you may know that the finale will be upon us this Monday, February 15th! To commemorate this great show, and to acknowledge requests for more costumes, we’ve made some Gravity Falls Poptropica costumes for you to enjoy. (And if you’re not a fan, we highly recommend you start your binge-watching today. 😉 )

gravitypop

From left to right, here’s how you can get their costumes:

  • Soos: You can get his hat from the tent guy on Ghost Story and the shirt from the Bigfoot Fanatic costume in the Store. Alternatively, the green video game shirt from a guy on Reality TV also works, and it’s customizable when you friend phbSoos.
  • Dipper: His hat is from a guy on Lunar Colony’s Main Street, and the jacket is from a guy on Red Dragon’s Frog Creek. Simply friend phbDipper and customize.
  • Mabel: Her whole look can be achieved from the start at account creation. You can friend phbMabel and customize her whole look.
  • Grunkle Stan: His fez (hat) is from Time Tangled’s Timbuktu (Mali Empire), the suit from Spy Island, and you can buy Fake Noses from the Store (yes, we know Stan’s glasses aren’t like that, but close enough). (Extra: get the Timmy Failure Scarf in the Store and use the ASG on WillyWonkaASG for the cane!) Friend phbStanPines for the outfit. For the beard, use the ASG on ZeusASG. (Double extra: friend StanfordPines2 for Grunkle Ford’s costume!)
  • Wendy: Her freckles are from a lady on Cryptids Island, and the rest of her costume is from the clothing crank on Home Island. To make it simple, friend phbWendy and customize. For a plaid shirt instead, try the Fall Fashion Outfit from the Store – but note that this is red, not green.

These guys are also now on our Costumes page! Hope you enjoyed these costumes, and let us know what you think! 🙂 Oh, and if you have the Pixel Pig Power, you can pretend it’s Waddles. 😉

By the way, if you have any costume ideas, we would love to hear them – and you are more than welcome to make your own, especially with instructions or accounts to befriend for said costumes. The comments section of our Costumes page is a great place to start (as well as just to browse).

mabel

Let’s #TakeBackTheFalls together!

Creators, PHB Specials, Poptropica Portfolio

Poptropica Portfolio: Jordan Leary

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans!

Last week’s Poptropica Portfolio feature was pretty popular, so here’s another! (Here on the PHB, we’ve previously featured the works of Abraham Tena, Chris Goodwin, and Nate Greenwall.) The lucky Creator to be featured this time is Jordan Leary, also thought to be Dr. Hare.

On his Behance page, Jordan says this of his work with Poptropica: “I’ve been leading the development of Poptropica, one of the most popular online kids’ games in the world, since 2007. I developed the original game engine, the animation system, and hundreds of games, scenes, and effects. Play the game at www.poptropica.com.” The original game engine, we assume, refers to the classic non-SUI (sound updated islands) on Poptropica. This game demo reel also shows a lot of his Poptropica work:

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Many of the Poptropica designs Jordan displays on his website are interactive, which we unfortunately cannot embed here on the PHB. Instead, we recommend that you visit his portfolio site directly so you can play around with his designs. We’ll also post pictures below to let you know what to look out for.

When you first land on the site, you’ll be on the Games tab, where you can find a few Poptropica-related bits on the side (including a screenshot of the PHB’s Star Link video!). However, it’s the next tab, UI, that shows the good Pop stuff. You get to make a bunch of Realms “bubbles”, view prototypes of the inventory cards and age picker, play a game of Mancala, the matching game with Mahjong tiles, Fiona’s violin, and more! Check it out on the UI tab on Jordan’s portfolio site!

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As foundational as he’s been to the game’s development since the beginning, it appears he’s no longer part of the team – his LinkedIn page shows that he left Poptropica in October 2015. Goodbye, Dr. Hare!

Thanks for all your work in making Poptropica what it is, Jordan – and we promise we’re not 12-year-old stalkers anymore. Maybe a little older now. 😉

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this look into a leading Poptropica developer’s popping portfolio! Stay popping, Poptropicans. 😀