Author: Slanted Fish

Pop drop: After a day’s delay, Poptropica’s Steam bundle is ready to play!

To get started, head on over to Pop’s page on Steam to purchase the game, then open up the Steam app (or download it if it’s your first time). If you’re playing on a Mac, you’ll also need to download Adobe AIR.

Interestingly, the price of the bundle seems to vary by region. If you’re in the US, where Poptropica is based, the bundle is US$19.99. Traveling by VPN, you can see how it varies only slightly in other Western countries (A$28.95 in Australia, £15.49 in the UK, CDN$22.79 in Canada; which is US$20.53, 19.48, and 17.82 respectively).

But you may be able to pick up the game at about half the cost in other parts of the world. In Hong Kong, I was able to get mine for HK$89 (US$11.34). Other countries are similar (R 130 in South Africa) or even cheaper (₹ 529 in India, ARS$224.99 in Argentina) which is US$8.25, 6.82, and 1.88 respectively. As for why, we can only guess, but such pricing is generally tailored for the market value of local economies.

Those of us anticipating the game’s release were kept waiting a while, but it finally came out in the final hours of the expected day. The game was originally scheduled to release around 3 p.m. EST on Wednesday, May 25 according to Pop’s Steam page. Poptropica didn’t explain what caused the delay, but did tweet an apology around 8 p.m. EST. It was finally released about 1 a.m. EST on Thursday.

The Poptropica Steam bundle includes Realms as well as 17 islands (+1 if you count the tutorial, Snagglemast): Mythology (classic), Shrink Ray, Poptropolis Games, Monster Carnival, Time Tangled, Mystery of the Map, Virus Hunter, 24 Carrot, Galactic Hot Dogs, Mocktropica, Escape From Pelican Rock, Reality TV: Wild Safari, Timmy Failure, and all episodes of Survival, PoptropiCon, Arabian Nights, and Mission Atlantis — also known as the AS3 islands, or the newer bunch of the old islands.🏝 Playing requires an internet connection and logging into your account, which is connected to your desktop or mobile game.

Anyway, we’re off to play this Steam game! We’ll update more soon, so stay tuned. Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

~🐠

Poptropica announced last month that a selection of old islands would be returning, not on their own game site but through Steam, the video game distribution platform. We’ve since learned that the Steam bundle releases this month, and now, we have an exact date, islands, and more!

A Steam page has been discovered by Poptropicans poking around, confirming a major fan theory about the upcoming returning islands and revealing some new info as well. 👀 (Thanks for the tip, zett & Oof!)

According to the page, there will be 17 islands in the Steam bundle: Mythology (classic), Shrink Ray, Poptropolis Games, Monster Carnival, Time Tangled, Mystery of the Map, Virus Hunter, 24 Carrot, Galactic Hot Dogs, Mocktropica, Escape From Pelican Rock, Reality TV: Wild Safari, Timmy Failure, and including the four full episodic islands of Survival, PoptropiCon, Arabian Nights, and Mission Atlantis. 🏝

All of these islands are on the newer end of the spectrum of old islands and built with AS3, confirming the frontrunning fan theory for such islands based on previous hints from the Pop Creators. Although 17 islands is more than the original 13 promised, the extra four are not exactly “returning” islands as they already exist in the current game: 24 Carrot, Time Tangled, Escape From Pelican Rock, and Timmy Failure.

We hadn’t matched any of the Creators’ hints with the returning, but somewhat unpopular Reality TV: Wild Safari. Meanwhile, another short AS3 island did not make the list despite an earlier promise for its return: Monkey Wrench. 🙈 Still, Poptropica hasn’t ruled out the possibility for more islands to be added to Steam in the future.

On top of all that, many of the returning islands were once playable on the Poptropica mobile app for free, before they were erased at the beginning of this year to match the app with the desktop game.

The bundle releases in less than two weeks on Wed, May 25, so get ready to download with a free Steam account, 2 GB of available space, and cash to spare! While the Steam site doesn’t mention a price yet, the Pop Creators have shared that the Steam bundle will not be free. 💸

Although some Poptropicans have already been enjoying these islands for free with Flashpoint, the post-Flash fan-run preservation project, the Steam bundle offers a few differentiating features. One of the islands, likely Monster Carnival, is expected to come with a new twist. The Steam bundle will also be playable on Mac computers (except M1 Macs — for now?) in addition to Windows PCs.

An internet connection is also mentioned on the page, despite the Steam game being a download. However, perhaps it may work like the app, where you can download islands to play offline, then reconnect online for multiplayer features. Update: A tweet from Poptropica confirms that the game will be online as it could not work offline.

The Steam game also includes the build-your-own-world Realms and other features from the original game: costumes, clubhouse, pets, store, and common rooms. ✨

Now that we’ve got this rundown of what to expect for the upcoming Steam bundle, how are you feeling on this scale of 0–10 Poptro-pain? 🤯

~🐠