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, we’ve got a couple TikTok clips and tons more Instagram stories to unpack. Let’s pop into it!
Earlier this week, Poptropica dropped a new TikTok featuring the picking of the golden apple at the Tree of Immortality on Mythology Island. The vid is accompanied by some rather peculiar squeaking and coughing, apparently a trending TikTok soundbite.
Also just recently, another quick vid popped onto the scene, wishing Poptropica a happy 14th birthday along with a slideshow of photos of Jeff Kinney, Poptropica’s original founder. Strangely fitting for the occasion, it’s joined by James Corden’s parody of an Ariana Grande song — “thank u, jeff” — originally for Jurassic Park actor Jeff Goldblum, which explains the line, “I’m so freakin’ scared of that T-rex.”
Itching to add to the sea of Pop fan art out there? Those Poptober prompts from HCT might be just the thing to inspire your next piece(s). Like last year’s Poptober, the drawing challenges are here to encourage you to create throughout the coming October. You can do as much (or little) as you like — possibly even one a day as LJ did! ✏️ However you participate, just have fun with it!
And yes, as the story says, Rumpel’s Challenge is in fact out now! This follow-up to Fairytale Island is currently only available to members. Stay tuned for the PHB’s guide coming soon. Don’t stumble on ol’ Rumpel! 😈
Hey Poptropicans! We’ve got fan art galore in this post with costume creations, memes, and more featured by the Pop Creators. Let’s go!
First up, Poptropica has posted the monthly compilation video of entries for the costume design contest. With the theme of Red October, you just might find your bones tingling from the early Halloween vibes.
UPDATE: A day after this PHB post, the Pop Creators quietly replaced the video with a new version (shown above), taking into account the concerns we addressed (shown below). While the old video is now unavailable, the new one credits IG artists and removes an offending username. They thought they could be sneaky in not announcing the change, but we noticed! Still, props for doing the right thing.
The PHB’s comments before the change:While the costumes are undoubtedly spooktacular, we did make a couple of chilling observations in the vid: 1) the questionable attribution of “via IG” for various entries from Instagram that do not properly credit their artists, and 2) the inclusion of a watermark from a username with profanity that the Pop Creators previously featured on their IG story.
From these observations, perhaps the Pop Creators only want to credit people by their Poptropican name (although they don’t mind keeping in any watermarks that appear on images, even the aforementioned iffy name). Still, not every IG user put a watermark on their pic, which means that some in the video have gone uncredited. (Tips for Pop: take the extra step to give credit where it’s due, even if it’s not a Pop name, and maybe not at all if it’s vulgar. It matters!)
Beyond these oddities, they also haven’t yet announced the six winners promised whose costumes will be created for the game. While we wait, I figured I’d share some of my own personal picks:
Dryad Fan by Red Panda
Pumpkin Punk by Gentle Dolphin
Will-O’-Wisp by Sleepy Biker
Zombie Nerd by Cheerful Boot
Gem Enthusiast by Red Toes
The Lurking Witch by Brave Cheetah
Lil Ghost by Red Panda
Autumn Leaves by Little Lizard
Besides the costumes, fan artists have been busy making drawings and even videos for the fan-run Poptropica Month. The Pop Creators’ Blog recently featured several pieces starring Amelia, the Baron, and MVB:
Amelia with Pop’s 14th birthday cake by Sleepy Biker
Amelia & Baron as Mario & Luigi by Sleepy Biker
Red Baron discovers Amelia’s love of unicorns by Friendly Feather
Meme by Red Toes
In addition to these pics, they also featured a few videos, all of which were posted this month for the fan-hosted Poptropica Month 2021 playlist! Here’s one from iHateFridays (aka Magic Snowball) doodling while describing their personal experiences with Pop:
And here’s one from TheOrangeHelium taking various online quizzes to test her Poptropica knowledge. (Hey, look at Pop crediting fan creators by their non-Pop usernames on social media. It’s not that hard!)
Finally, the Pop Creators also highlighted a sneak peek of a storyline told in comics from Invisible Ring. For the record, you can read (and watch) all about her dream island, Megatropolis, here on the PHB!
That concludes this post! Stay tuned to find out which costumes the Baron will be bringing in her next visit, and enjoy the plentiful productions from both players and Pop Creators throughout the game’s birthday month. Keep on popping on, Poptropicans! ✌️
This is a guest post from Silver Shell sharing her My Place in Poptropica story, which is all about one’s Poptropica journey.Enjoy!
Hi! I’m Silver Shell, and this is my first post on the PHB. I’m going to show you my MPIP, My Place in Poptropica.
The Great Discovery
The year was… actually, I don’t know when the year was. I must’ve forgotten. Huh. Sorry if any of you wanted the year.
It was the middle of summer. I had nothing else to do, so I was on my computer, playing a bunch of uncool math games on Cool Math Games. I was scrolling, and I saw a picture of some lady with aviator’s goggles, a hat, and a jacket. She looked kind of like Amelia Earhart, actually — just missing some key ingredients like, I don’t know, a nose and ears. Since I was fascinated by aviation back then, I thought the game looked cool.
The Flying Ace Race — scene from Monkey Wrench Island
Then there was the name. Poptropica. How do you pronounce it? I had no idea. For a few days, I walked around calling it “pop-TROPE-ee-kay”.
Anyway, I Googled the game to see if search engines thought it was any good. Fun? Okay. Communicating safely? Why not? Educational…Oh. No. That ain’t gonna work. See, I was kind of sick of games where they’re all like “What’s 5 times 5? Good job! You’ve unlocked a pet!” and stuff like that. Regardless of that, I was curious, so I clicked.
And behold, the beginning of an era.
Playing the Game
I was welcomed by some pink rabbit with goggles standing on a floating island (little did I know I would see stranger things than that!) with a bunch of stuff flying around in the background. After spending maybe twenty minutes just staring at the screen to see what would fly around in the background, I finally clicked “new player.”
After creating my avatar to look as much like me as possible, and talking to the girl in the goggles and jacket (who was actually named Amelia, after the aviator!), I went on my first quest, to a creepy-looking, kind of run-down island called 24 Carrot.
I’ll admit, back then I didn’t quite understand how the islands worked. I thought if I refused the quest, there would have to be something else to do. I thought I was really on a time limit.
I thought hiding behind flowers would conceal me from Dr. Hare.
After winning, I received something I would never forget. It was such an important symbol of my achievement and duty as a Poptropican…
My first medallion. *cue the hallelujah chorus*
The Old New Poptropica
I played Poptropica almost every day for a long time, but after a while, I realized that things weren’t changing. I wished for something new every day. I was coming to a scary suspicion that the creators were giving up on their own game. I checked the Pop Creators’ Blog nonstop, but nothing. I stopped playing for a while. I had to focus on school, anyway.
That all changed one day in 2020, when I decided to check the Creators’ Blog again for the first time in months, and I saw something amazing, something mysterious, something I had never seen before, and it was titled:Classic Islands are Baaaaaacccckkkk!
I immediately bought a membership, sailed through islands I had never before seen, met characters, defeated villains, saved innocents, and my medallions were piling up. I never felt happier!
Then I read the post again. They were here until the end of Flash. What? The end of Flash? Poptropica’s life force is shutting down?!
I Googled it to see if it was true. Sure enough, Flash was going away, but Poptropica’s here to stay! I played the old islands for as long as I could, as many times as I could, and tried to make the best of it while I had it. I was sad when the old islands left, but I was proud of myself for bringing peace to so many islands.
I kicked their bots.
The Beginning of the End
At first, I thought it wasn’t too bad. Flash had just been taken away, and Poptropica wasn’t too different. In fact, some improvements even came out! I liked how NPCs walked across Home Island. The removal of the movie theater wasn’t a big deal. I thought it would be fine!
Later, a mini-quest of one of my favorite islands came out: the Zomberry Hero Special Event! For a while, there was peace in Poptropica.
And that became a problem. Sure, there was the occasional mini-quest, but without new islands, there wasn’t much left to do. Little did I know I would be wishing for things to stay the same in the future.
Home Island before (top pic) it was remodeled in 2021 (bottom pic)
It all kind of collapsed for me when Home Island was remade for Haxe. I loved it the way it was, but now too much is changing. Every single part of Poptropica I loved was either taken away or changed. The changes were always glitchy and annoying in my opinion. The characters became bouncy and peppy and unnatural. No matter how much I petitioned, the creators wouldn’t bring back what I had come to love: Old Poptropica. I couldn’t rely on anything.
Bunk: Perhaps you, too, will love the 90s.
Or so I thought.
Meeting the Community
I was searching “Poptropica Help” one day just because I was bored and I wanted to see what came up. A Poptropica Help Blog?! This was just what I needed to keep myself distracted!
Life Jackets On: The lucky few who made it to the lifeboats.
I found a huge blog with thousands of readers who love Poptropica as much as I do, a place that keeps me informed about new stuff, one where people all around the world can share their ideas.
That led me to even more fansites: the Poptropica Wiki, We-Love-Poptropica on DeviantArt, and so much more. I finally found a part of Poptropica I could rely on: the community! This was what I could trust!
Now, I’m a part of the community, and guest-writing here on this blog, too. So there you go! My Place in Poptropica!
I think all of you deserve a medallion for reading this entire thing. It’s pretty long. Thanks for reading!
Don’t stop popping, Silver Shell
Hope you enjoyed this “My Place in Poptropica” story! If you did, you’ll probably enjoy our other MPIP stories here on the PHB.
If you haven’t already shared your story, we invite you to send in your own. Interested in writing for the PHB under a different Pop-topic? Take a look at our Write for the PHB page for ideas, guidelines, and more! 📰✨
What’s popping, Poptropicans? We’ve got flannel flair, mummy madness, and sidebar snippets to see. Let’s pop right in!
A new week brings another refresh to Adventure Outfitters, and this time, Amelia’s brought out a new Flannel Tank (200 credits) for the fall vibes. We also have the return of the classic Fairy Queen costume (350 credits, members only). See the full stock on the Creators’ Blog »
Flannel Tank
Fairy Queen
But wait, there’s more! *inhale* The clubhouse store is also stocking some new gear, and don’t blink, ’cause we got pink.
New decor includes the Daisy Printed Tapestry (100 credits), Rocking Gamer Chair (150), Square Storage Ottoman (75), Pink School Backpack (75), Inhale & Exhale Wall Prints (100), and a College-Style Electric Scooter (100). Whatchu think? *exhale*
On the subject of store stuff, don’t forget that today’s the deadline for the Baron’s Red October costume design contest! You have until Tuesday, September 14th at 8pm PST/11 pm EST to submit your creation(s) for a chance to get your design in the game. Good luck!
In other news, there’s a new video ad with prizes from Disney Channel’s new movie, Under Wraps! To watch it, click on its icon on the map or hop on over to 24 Carrot Island. After the viewing, you’ll get an I’m A Mummy costume and the Dancing Mummy Follower!
Thanks to Gentle Dolphin for the pics!
Pressing the spacebar makes two different things happen. Wearing the costume allows you to dance, and using the follower allows Harold the mummy to dance. Use both prizes simultaneously for best results. 🕺🕺
Speaking of video, over on the Pop Creators’ Blog, there’s a new sidebar section dedicated to Poptropica videos! Like the video at the bottom corner of the game screen, this little area loops short clips of scenes from the game that you might also find on their YouTube channel.
It’s certainly an interesting addition, and one that makes more sense being placed here than on the game screen, where there’s already plenty of movement going on. What with TikTok virality and now this, it looks like Poptropica’s popping off with the vids!
One last thing to note: the Creators’ Blog has been dropping some hints about birthday celebrations coming up, including something that involves us, the players. What might it be? We’ll have to see…
Keep an eye out for upcoming news about special events celebrating Poptropica’s 14th birthday and most importantly, YOU!
That’s a wrap for this post. What do you think of the store stuff, birthday surprises, and more? Share your thoughts in the comments, and see you next time, Poptropicans!
Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Incredible Fire. Enjoy!
Hello everyone! Over the pandemic, I’ve gotten really into gaming theorists, so while I was scouring the latest mini quest for a potential “Is Amelia a Villain?” theory, I stumbled onto something… interesting. It may just possibly change the way we think about Poptropica forever. So what is this game-changing theory?
In the top corner of Amelia’s house, we see that she’s been studying Rumplestiltskin. The lipstick flashes purple when you interact with it — and it’s the same purple flashes with white sparks seen in Fairy Tale Island when Rumplestiltskin uses magic.
Also in Amelia’s house, we can see photos of her with her friends. Most noticeably, the girl from the statue on Home Island. We can gather from her statue that she’s studious, and from the picture, can apparently do magic. And what color is her magic? Purple with white sparks.
And that’s not all, folks! If you look at the king in Fairy Tale Island, he doesn’t really resemble his son. That could be for any number of reasons, but guess who he does resemble? Our magic girl. They have the same skin tone and similar bouncy hair.
Perhaps Purple Girl is actually Rumplestiltskin in disguise, or vice-versa. It’s not too far-fetched for our shapeshifting trickster. That would explain her absence from the game and why Amelia is so intent on finding her.
But then again, maybe not. Rumplestiltskin presents as a male, and seems older than the girl in the image. It seems more likely that he’s an older relative. Or perhaps the girl is related to the king, and Rumplestiltskin is a mentor?
And what role does Amelia play in this? Who are the other people in the picture? What about Xavier and Red Baroness?
If I’m actually right, what does this mean for Poptropica? Is Poptropica actually building an extensive lore around the newer islands of the game? Are they being subtle and letting us pick up on the clues for ourselves? Are we getting a part 2 to Fairy Tale Island? And most importantly, is Poptropica gonna be able to pull it off? I don’t actually think I’m right, but I’m excited to find out!
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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