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!
Hey Poptropicans! Amid the somber news of Poptropica going out of business, some diehard fans are keeping the game’s legacy alive through the art of tattoos. Check out these incredible inks below!
Here’s a line-art tattoo of the dragon from the torn picture and manhole cover in Counterfeit Island, created by @lexjjart. So cool!
Next up is a tattoo of Poseidon from Mythology Island! The design was done by @rekitto.inks for their sister, and features a bit of color alongside some grayscale shading, topped off with some sparkles. Nice!
Bucky LucasDr. Hare in a blimpPoptropolis Games citizen
Would you consider getting a Poptropica tattoo, and if so, what design would you go for? If you come across more Pop tatts or get one of your own, we’d love for you to share it with us on our Discord server, the PHC.
Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Magic Kid. Enjoy!
Howdy guys! It’s Magic Kid, again, and I’m back with the second part in my latest fanfiction: Murder at Myron’s! If you have no idea what’s going on, you can read the first part here.
Guys, I am having WAY too much fun writing this, I’d forgotten how satisfactory it was to leave innocent readers on cliffhangers.
Last time I left you guys, you were introduced into a villain get-together dinner party, which was all jolly good fun until Winston returned to the party with the news that Myron Van Buren is MISSING!
*comical gasps from the crowd*
Where did he go? You’ll have to read for yourself to find out…
Murder at Myron’s
(Part 2/4)
Lightning split the sky, illuminating the scene.
Mordred was looking piercingly at Winston, as though he was reading his mind to see if this was some sort of prank. Director D was looking politely surprised. Moreau made a small gasp that was so comically French of her that Daphne sniggered. Ringmaster Raven did not seem affected by the news and remained still.
Captain Crawfish, on the other hand, spit out a drink and banged the empty cup on the table with a loud “HE’S MISSIN’?”. Gretchen Grimlock (whom Crawfish’s drink had been spat out on) was scowling and looked disgusted. Black Widow couldn’t care less. And Count Bram sat up a little straighter in his chair, waiting to hear more.
I, Merlin, was shocked to hear that the host had disappeared. I wondered what had happened to him and was very curious to find out. Excited (though very concerned), I started to fly around Mordred’s head.
“I’ve looked everywhere!” Winston said heavily. “He’s nowhere in the house — or outside, for that matter.”
“Odd,” Moreau said. “He’s normally the first one present for these sorts of things.”
“Very odd indeed,” agreed Raven.
Gretchen mused, “He ALWAYS makes a big scene whenever he’s at a party. Something must be wrong if he’s not around…”
Captain Crawfish stood up. “I’m going to go find him!” He started to walk out of the room.
“Wait!” Winston said. “We should go in groups to search. I hate to be the paranoid one, but something’s definitely off. It wouldn’t be safe to go alone.”
“Alright,” Crawfish sighed. “Which one of you lot wants to come with me?”
Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Magic Kid. Enjoy!
BOO! Hi guys, did I scare you? I’m Magic Kid, and after my long hiatus after my last fanfiction, Zombies, Zombies, Always Zombies!, I’m back with another Poptropica fic for y’all: Murder at Myron’s. I’ll post this fanfiction in four parts throughout the month of October as a Halloween treat for you PHB readers!
This series will be narrated by none other than Merlin, the mechanical owl from Astro-Knights Island,and will feature several Poptropica villains you know and love that will be introduced as the story goes on.
And now! Without further ado, I present you with…
Murder at Myron’s
(Part 1/4)
It was a dark and stormy night…
That’s how most stories start, right? Either that or “Once upon a time”, which wouldn’t suit the tale we were about to embark on anyway. But I assure you that the night of which our story starts was indeed “dark and stormy”.
Thunder echoed in every corner of the woods, lightning crackled and split the sky, the rain mercilessly poured from the heavy gray clouds. What a storm, what a storm!
And then, from the clouded night sky, a light shone. It was bright and it was… moving? Sure enough, the light was getting bigger, coming closer and closer to the ground.
Was it a UFO? Were perhaps aliens about to invade the lush forest? Good guess.
As the clouds parted to let this mysterious object land, it was now apparent that the light was from fire from the spaceship’s thruster. The rain pounded against the metal of the ship as it gently lowered itself down onto the earth, breaking the tall trees’ branches as it went.
BREAKING NEWS: Poptropica, the company, is out of business.
Last month, we reported on the apparent End of Poptropica, as reported by one Poptropica ex-employee on LinkedIn, and backed up by several “looking for work” updates from other former employees on the job-focused platform. Though there still has yet to be an official announcement from Poptropica itself, the news was recently confirmed on X/Twitter by another ex-Pop Creator, Jonathan Pitcher.
I was too distracted to celebrate Poptropica's birthday since our company was shutting down last month. Even without the studio we still have Poptropica. 🙂 You can still play it on Cool Math Games.
We reached out to Jon, former Art Director at Poptropica and its spin-off Roblox studio Suit Up Games (which has also closed), whom we’ve had the pleasure of interviewing before. Graciously, Jon was happy to share more information surrounding the company closure. Below is our Q&A:
PHB: Has Poptropica officially closed, and will there be an official announcement?What does this mean for the future of Poptropica?
Jon: The company that made Poptropica and Suit Up Games is now closed down — Sandbox is the parent company for Poptropica & Suit Up Games. They also are for Cool Math Games and that will continue.
Poptropica will continue to live on at Cool Math Games.
Landfall: We’re establishing a beachhead.
PHB: Why and how has this happened?
Jon: The decline in Poptropica’s traffic made the company not able to secure clients for advertising to bring in enough revenue. Without regular paying clients for advertising the company could not continue.
Old Growth: It’s a jungle out there.
PHB: Is anyone is still working on Poptropica, and if so who?
Jon: The employees at Cool Math Games have the power to keep Poptropica going. I don’t know what their plans are for new content at this stage.
PHB: How is the rest of Sandbox doing? Can they support Poptropica’s future development? Anyone else from Sandbox who can share?
Jon: The plan is for Poptropica to keep going on Cool Math Games. The employees at Cool Math Games have the latest perspective on Poptropica but let’s give them time to decide how they would like to proceed.
Aces High: We’re baron our souls on this one.
PHB: Anything else you can share with Poptropica fans about this situation?
Jon: As I look for a new job as an art manager and animator I’ll continue my support with Poptropica and the Poptropica Help Blog. Thanks for keeping the torch lit.
We’re super grateful to Jon for shining some light on this situation, especially while Poptropica itself continues to leave us in the dark! Speaking of whom, Jon Pitcher is currently available for hire as a director or animator, and we think he’d be an amazing asset to any company or project. 🙌 Check out his animation demo reel below which showcases many of the Poptropica ad mini-games he’s worked on:
Here are some of the mini games on Poptropica I designed and managed the teams who created them. I got to work with excellent artists and programmers who worked effectively, with impressive skills. I'm available for a new position as director or animator. pic.twitter.com/HBzN7W0m0i
Last month, we also took a dive into Poptropica’s financial statements, where we found losses noted and Sandbox lumping in Pop’s finances with their other subsidiaries. Now on their page in the Companies House of the UK government, where Poptropica Limited is registered, it shows that their accounts are overdue as of 30 September 2024 — another sign that the company is not operating normally.
Meanwhile, a new filing from Sandbox International Holdings Limited dated 28 September makes note of a “slowing global spend on digital advertising” affecting their businesses, reflecting Jon’s comment that a lack of advertising clients for Poptropica affected its ability to continue.
But hey, the legacy of Poptropica lives on! Popular rising girl group KATSEYE, in response to a fan’s question on X, recently mentioned Poptropica among a list of video games they played. 🔥
YES FORTNITE, OVERCOOKED, DTI, COOKING MAMA, JUST DANCE, TOMBRAIDER, POPTROPICA, MINECRAFT, MARIO and more
Despite the closure of Poptropica the company, the game still lives on officially through Cool Math Games, though whether it will ever receive updates remains to be seen. More of the game, including its older content, can also be unofficially accessed via Flashpoint. And we the PHB aren’t going anywhere — we’ll continue to be here as a gathering space for the Poptropica fandom. See you around! 👋
Top of the Heap: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
P.S. Poptropica just had its 17th birthday this past September! See how we celebrated with our community art collab here. 🎉
Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Invisible Ring. Enjoy!
For years, I’ve wondered who shrunk the yellow blimp I was riding on, and I have returned once again to share my air-headed thoughts on such a small mystery.
For example, the first mini-blimp like this was on Shrink Ray Island, which leads me to believe that the culprit was armed with a shrink ray. After all, those ray-guns certainly flooded the market back in the day…
…But if this is true, then who put those shrink rays to such a devious use? Some may automatically blame the classic ray-gun villains, like Dr. Hare or Director D. But I think that the most likely suspect would be Dr. Blandston, zapper of blimps! After all, I saw the doctor from Goofball Island with my own eyes; firing that blandston-ray at my blimp. Who’s to say they didn’t fire a shrink ray too?
However, the blimp mystery may not be as simple as all that. For back on Home Island, I found not one, but TWO mini-blimps! Almost as if someone used “Twin Power” on them!
…Either that, OR somebody might’ve found a way to split a large classic blimp into two smaller blimps! That doesn’t explain where the “Poptropica” logo disappeared to, though. (Unless those blimp vandals took the logo off first!)
But this isn’t too much of a problem, because there are still plenty of classic blimps to go around, thanks to the Monkey Wrench Island monkeys.
…Although, there are a few islands that don’t have blimps at all! And those islands are the episodic adventures. Survival Island: Episode 1 is surely to blame for that. After that blimp destruction, there’s no blimp on that island, nor on any OTHER episodic adventure!
Thank goodness for the Monkey Wrench monkeys, to have built us new blimps for the islands that came after those multi-part islands, like this one on Pelican Rock!
Of course, we can’t forget the most common blimp Popspiracy out there: The mini-blimps are only on the newest islands, from 2021-now. Fairytale, Goofball, Jade Scarab, and the newest Home Island have the small blimps, and the rest of the islands have classic blimps.
Maybe Glowbhax shrunk the blimps! …haha, just kidding! I’m sure you all would rather say that the 2021 mini-blimp is just a modern design that’s only big enough for stuffed bunnies… but what if that modern design was ALSO done by the monkeys? Perhaps the Monkey Wrench monkeys were trying to keep up with the times, so they made big blimps for the old islands and small blimps for the new ones!
But one small catch… What if you travel from old islands to new islands, or vice-versa?
…Well, THAT answer is probably as wild and crazy as all the Poptropica storms we fly through! Imagine crossing over a modern island like Fairytale, when a shrink ray hits you and turns your classic blimp miniature! Then when you fly on outta there and exit that atmospheric layer of shrink ray waves, your blimp turns back to normal! …Either that, or Rumplestiltskin’s magic is at hand. Who knows?
One thing I do know is that it’s lots of fun to formulate all these deductions like a detective from Mystery Train Island. The sky is literally the limit! But regardless of whether you’re on a train, in a blimp, on foot, or in the real world, my advice to you is to keep on adventuring, and keep your eyes to the skies. And keep asking questions and making guesses, too, because that is exactly how we all learn!
(This Popspiracy—Poptropica conspiracy—was brought to you by my early BlimpyTrance posts from Pop Fan Kids.)
Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Invisible Ring. If you did, you might also enjoy watching her full-length Poptropica fan movie, Battle Morale!
The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. Interested in writing for the PHB? We’d love to hear from you!
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