Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, pop in for what’s popping!

Goofball Island’s side quest drops this Tuesday, Jan 11 for members! So far, we’ve seen sneak peeks of a mysterious Bee Bot and Hive News van with reporter Katie Dare. Stay tuned for our guide!

The Creators’ Blog has also been sharing some fun stuff from the community this week, with a Clubhouse Crawl for Spotted Star and a hand-drawn blimp maze puzzle from Friendly Noodle. Give it a spin!

Fan art continues on Instagram too, with Poptropica featuring these cute doodles of players’ original characters:

Reference sheet for Maroon Ring (Popsona) by @happyclonetrooper

Also, Poptropica’s still going strong uploading tons of new short clips on their YouTube and TikTok! We’ll share a couple highlights here, but to see more, check out their respective channel pages.

One of the more interesting clips is a soundbite meme with various Pop characters tagged as various kinds of people — among them, the Huntsman from Fairytale is a Canadian, a pixel pilgrim from Early Poptropica is a Christian, Mark Twain from Mystery Train is for real, and Ringmaster Raven from Monster Carnival is a liberal. How about you?

@poptropicacreator
TAG YOURSELF 👀 what Poptropica character are you?
♬ original sound – 4WDMEMES

Another clip shares some Poptropica cosplay looks previously featured on Pop’s social media, captioned “expectations vs reality.” The final shot features what might be a Pop Creator’s face reveal, except their face is covered by paper goggles and painted buckteeth. Not bad for a homemade Dr. Hare look! 🐰

That’s a wrap for this update. Pop on, Poptropicans!

~🐠

Baron's Airship, Monthly Costume Contests

Rainbow Pup with Reverts on Pop Outfits 🌈

January 5, 2022 Slanted Fish

Hey, is that a rainbow in the skies of Pop?

Just a hair of one — the Baron’s back in Home Island airspace and carrying goodies including the free winning costume design, Rainbow Pup by Hamburger Hamburger! 🐶🍔

Also in the Cabin of Curiosities, you’ll find three new clubhouse items: Dino Head (75 credits), potted Cactus (75), and Cards and Candles (75). Enjoy the Baron’s visit — it’s only going to last “a short while”!

In other news, the character customization screen has gotten a little update! Now, selecting a costume will bring up its image in larger detail, with a “Costumize” button to begin picking parts from it like before.

This time, though, a new gray “Revert” button will appear when you try something on. You can use it to undo your item selection and go back to the way you looked. Pretty handy! (Thanks to Friendly Feather for the tip.)

We’ve also been graced with a little reminder that Poptropica has been working on bringing back old islands, in the form of a TikTok/YouTube short featuring Arabian Nights, Ep. 1, although the video title references Ep. 2. Either way… yay! Let’s keep the episodes coming for all.

Anyway, that’s what’s up for now. See you in the next one!

~🐠

Fan Art Features, Goofball Island, Member Gifts, Monthly Costume Contests, Sneak Peeks

Live from the Hive: PoptropiCon rumored rerelease and more ☄️

January 3, 2022 Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, news from the hive coming at you live! Sort of, anyway. Pop in for sneak peeks, costumes, member gifts, and fan art!

The Pop Creators have dropped one last sneak peek for the upcoming Goofball Island side quest, as well as the bomb that it’ll be for members only, like bonus quests of old Pop islands. Meet the Hive News van:

Could Bee Bot from previous peeks be a tool, or even a sentient employee, of this buzzing news organization? We’ll find out soon when this sequel side quest drops! 🐝🎤

Over at Adventure Outfitters, tons of PoptropiCon-themed outfits and clubhouse decor have hit the racks! Among the new outfits are characters from Mighty Action Force, the card game from PoptropiCon Island, Ep. 2: Spoiler Alert. Seems like a hint for the next possible rerelease, as Poptropica has mentioned bringing back more episodes.

For the full rundown of what’s new, check out the Creators’ Blog post.

The start of a new month also brings two familiar traditions: Member gifts for January are the Apple Cider Bottle, Fun Fireworks, and Sparkler accessories. Plus, the call is already out to begin sending in designs for the monthly costume contest, which ends in two weeks on Mon, January 17 at 8 p.m. PST. Keep your spark going! 🌠

Get your inspiration going with the latest fan art features from Pop’s Instagram stories. Maybe even join our Community Creations!

And with that, we’re popping off right into 2022! 🎉

~🐠

App

Islands disappear from Pop app

January 2, 2022January 12, 2022 Slanted Fish

Poptropicans, brace yourselves for a rocky start to the new year — we just lost a bunch of islands from the Poptropica mobile app. 😔

The Pop app now resembles the computer version of the game, meaning new islands and loss of old ones. Here’s what you’ll find now:

On the plus side, the new update shows an intention to sync the mobile and computer experience, which had been a goal when the app first launched but had been inconsistent in recent times while Haxe was being developed. Now the app seems to have caught up, adding new islands like Fairytale, Goofball, the latest Home Island with its shop, the current character customizer, and daily credits without the spin wheel.

The downside of this matching, though, is the loss of many classic islands which had previously been playable on the app even after the end of Flash. Those now-missing islands are the complete sets of episodes for Survival, Mission Atlantis, PoptropiCon, and Arabian Nights, as well as standalone islands Reality TV: Wild Safari, Mystery of the Map, Shrink Ray, Galactic Hot Dogs, and the original Mythology Island. (Thanks to Steel for the tip.)

RIP to episodic and newer islands once playable on the app.

Doubtless this update (or should we say downgrade?) is a blow to all Poptropicans, whose access to old islands had already been limited by the end of Flash in 2020. It’s not clear why the Pop Creators decided to remove so many islands, and this time the culprit isn’t Flash, since the app uses a different technology that showed these newer (AS3) islands could still stick around after Flash.

Our best guess is that since Mission Atlantis, Ep. 1 and Arabian Nights, Ep. 2 are members only on the computer, the Creators would have wanted to keep things consistent on the app (whereas before, anyone could play all the episodes on the app). That still doesn’t quite excuse the deletion of so many other islands, but we can only hope that they plan to bring them back to both computer and app eventually. However, they did mention that they’re planning to bring back more episodes, and promised more news of rereleases in the coming weeks.

In Too Deep: There’s deep undercover and there’s which way is up.

In the meantime, you can still play many more of the older (AS2) islands on Flashpoint, and newer islands gone from the app may still be accessible through a Chrome extension and alternative Flash Player.

It’s disappointing to see these disappearances, and the new additions to the app don’t quite make up for what was so suddenly lost without any good reason given. Still, earlier promises of more rereleases may yet pave the way for their eventual return on both computer and app.

Let’s hope the rest of this year delivers more than it deducts. We’ll say it again and again: bring the old islands back!

~🐠

Blast from the Past, Social Media

Cheers to years of stories 🥳

January 1, 2022January 1, 2022 Slanted Fish

Happy New Year, Poptropicans! ✌️🥳✌️✌️

Before popping off into 2022, Poptropica popped down memory lane with a blog reflection of the past year, highlighting all the new quests from 2021 — the “Year of Stories,” as they had called it.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Official Poptropica (@poptropicacreators)

Most notably, the blog post shares a little update about the state of the old islands, with a reassurance that our cries have not fallen on deaf ears:

As for a current update, there are more episodes in the process of conversion at this very moment! It’s worthwhile to note that we recognize and share your frustrations. Although the act of converting the older islands is long and difficult, we’d like to thank you for your patience, Poptropicans. Your understanding is greatly appreciated! If you’re hoping for hints about the next rerelease, there will be much more news to share in the coming weeks!
Poptropica Creators’ Blog (2021 Wrap Up)

We’ll have to wait and see what 2022 brings, but it sounds like the next conversions will continue to be for episodic islands, like with 2021’s rereleases for Mission Atlantis and Arabian Nights. Stay tuned!

Besides the Creators’ wrap-up, you might also enjoy the PHB’s 2021 Poptropica Rewind, which highlights not only the Pop drops, but also other noteworthy happenings from around the fandom.

One of our throwbacks was to our mini-series featuring insights from former Poptropica head Jess Brallier. His first tweet for the new year shared a “wonderful, heart-warming” testimonial to Poptropica from a college-aged kid, who praised the game’s value of cultural literacy: