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!
Happy weekend, Poptropicans! We’ve got a few fun updates in this post: a video and more behind-the-scenes from the Candy Crazed Mini Quest as well as some fan art features. Let’s pop into it!
First, a small nod to the LGBTQ+ came through in the latest Creators’ Blog post, which begins, “HELLOOOOO all you guys, gals, and non-binary pals!” 🏳️🌈 The post includes a playthrough video of the Candy Crazed Mini Quest from Silent Frog, Poptropica’s social media voice:
“Do you think Hansel and Gretel are the villains of the story?” Silent Frog asks. As the video is part of YouTube Kids, comments are turned off there, but you can share your take in the Creators’ Blog comments!
The blog also shared some BTS (not a K-Poptropican group, but behind-the-scenes) of the making of the mini quest’s decadent designs. 🍫 Take a look at the candy palace pics below and read more about this tasty treat tower with juicy puns and alliterations on the official blog:
Treat tower
Colorful cast
Portraits of Little Witchy, Nanny, and Gumdrop Pup
In other news, earlier this week, the Pop Creators shared some fan art features on their Instagram stories! Check out these peachy portraits:
Hey Poptropicans, we’re getting right to the heart of Poptropica with OG Poptropica CEO/publisher Jess Brallier! We’ve shared his vision for Pop and even interviewed him here on the PHB before, but there’s more…
from JessBrallier.com
Jess identifies as Zeus in Poptropica
Jess recently shared a personal blog post titled “Storytelling, games, and Poptropica,” discussing how it all began with our favorite virtual world—and it’s well worth the read. (Thanks to Brave Tomato, former PHB staffer, for bringing it to our attention!)
The post starts off affirming the success of Poptropica co-creator Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Jess ponders further potential…
What I really wanted (as I always did) was to publish stories for kids. What was different this time, was that those kids were now intensely engaged in games.
Hmm. There’s gotta be a gaming literacy with which to tell stories.
…considering that print, film, and theater all have their ways to tell stories. Jess goes on to share how, throughout his career, people didn’t take seriously his ideas for using gaming to tell stories to kids. That is, until he began collaborating with Jeff Kinney to create Poptropica.
Jess captions this photo: “Top row, second one in, is actually me. Makes sense, the old guy, with a worried look on his face, “How am I going to sell this up to ownership?””
The characters in the stories would be avatars. The user would be the story’s protagonist. So this avatar had to be human-like. Able to fashionably dress in any historical or imagined time or place (just like stories!). They would move—jump, slide, flip. And express—facial emotions. Just like humans. This would not be a virtual world of cute little animals moving stiffly around getting rewards of bananas and apples. The art and design would be second to none.
Jess Brallier
Jess even quotes from an old PHB post, though without naming us. The commentary from “one critic,” about the scene of bubbles in Realms, comes from our post Pop 5: Most Beautiful Scenes in Poptropica, by Happy Lobster. Jess writes, “Good stuff! Our fans “got it.””
The PHB described this scene: “Based on Yggdrasil from Norse mythology, the tree containing all worlds, this scene may seem simple, but really, it is quite captivating. The minimal sky background, the way the colossal tree’s branches twist, and the shining bubbles containing enigmatic pinpricks of light all add up to its enthralling aesthetic.”
Jess continues his story of how Poptropica got started by describing the scramble to find room in the budget for two positions, a front-end and a back-end developer. They eventually track down Pearson’s CEO, Marjorie Scardino, who gives them ten minutes of her valuable time—and the green light to hire the people they need.
That wraps up Jess’s post, which you can read in full on his blog! The PHB reached out on Twitter to ask if he’d be sharing his thoughts on where Poptropica is at today, and he wrote back that he would. Considering how much the game has changed since his days as CEO, we’re definitely keen to hear what he has to say. Stay tuned with us!
Thanks for kind words. I will continue to speak of Poptropica (among other things) in my blog, and that will include my current thoughts. Stay tuned over next two weeks. https://t.co/tCchDRmH2k
— Jess M. Brallier (@Jess_M_Brallier) June 8, 2021
The cool thing about all of this, which we thought about from day one, is if we did it right, we’d also be developing a next generation of storytellers, artists, and designers. Cool!
Hey Poptropicans, it’s Slanted Fish here with a few updates around the PHB! To keep things organized and easy to find, we’ve added:
🖥 The PHB Series Guide, where you can browse through the many posts we’ve shared on the Poptropica Help Blog, sorted by series. Find links to blog posts like My Place in Poptropica, Pop 5s, Pop Places IRL, and more on this handy page, listed under the Pop Plus tab on the menu!
🖼 Also on the menu is a new Art tab, with convenient links to our many collections of amazing artistry from both Poptropica fans and Creators alike. Be inspired by Community Creations and Poptropica Portfolios, plus find old favorites like Comics and Digital Wallpapers that were formerly under the Pop Plus tab. There’s so much to see!
🐈 Last but not least, there are some changes to the Categories of our blog posts, which you can browse from the sidebar. We’ve added parent categories for Islands, PHB Series, and Poptropica Official Series to help you sort through the many, many pieces of news and other kinds of content we’ve been publishing over the years.
Showdown: One ladder, many shoots.
We hope all these updates are helpful for finding things around the blog, and can maybe even lead you to discover new things in the Poptropica community! With so much content created over the years, there’s plenty to explore. Enjoy the new Art and PHB Series Guide pages! 💙
Hey Poptropicans! We’ve got a few updates for you in this post: member gifts, a store rotation treating us to new items, and more behind the sweets of the Candy Crazed Mini Quest. Let’s go!
First, it’s a new month, which means a fresh batch of member gifts! June’s prezzies are all about balls: we’ve got a Trac Ball (press space bar to toss!), Bouncy Beach Ball, and Giant Squish Ball.
If you’re not a member, you can enter the PHB’s Free Membership Giveaway for a chance to win one! All you have to do is comment on the giveaway page and leave two other comments around the PHB within the month to join the lucky draw. You can try every month!
This week we’ve also got new items in Adventure Outfitters!
Fresh costumes include the Barbarian Warrior* (350 credits), Cat Hoodie (300 credits), Garden Glamour dress* (250 credits), and Summer Breeze* (250 credits). On the floor, we’ve got a Gummy Rider* (450 credits), Gumdrop Pup Follower (350 credits), and Master Huggins Piggyback* (150 credits). (* = members only)
You may recognize a few of these sweet treats from the Candy Crazed Mini Quest! It’s too bad most of the new things are for members only, but maybe they’ll return for all in a future rotation?
For the rest of the store rotation this week, check out this gallery courtesy of the Creators’ Blog update:
The Pop Creators also shared more behind-the-scenes deets and drawings on the making of the Candy Crazed Mini Quest. Here’s the roll call for the whole cast of hungry or confectionary characters, which you can read more about, puns and all, on the Creators’ Blog!
Get well soon, Master Huggles; get your name cleared, Little Witchy; and get to safety, Nanny! Guess it’s a hard life for the tasty-looking.
That wraps up this post! What do you think of the new items and the stories behind the crew of Candy Crazed? 🍭 Share with us in the comments, and keep on popping on, Poptropicans!
Hi, DD here! I know everyone is sad about the old islands being gone, and I am too. At least we got a new one this year, Fairytale Island.
I think it rocked! Still, it wasn’t at its full potential. Yeah it got modern and I liked that the creators put cutscenes but it lacked gameplay. They could keep the cutscenes but also add more asking dialogue, like old times, plus add item collecting!
Don’t worry, I’m going to imagine extra stuff for the island. Remember the Fairytale Fanfic Challenge? Here’s what I shared with the creators:
Where did Rumpelstiltskin disappear to? Will he ever return?
So here he has gotten free after troubling every fairy tale. Back on his home planet, he has a secret army! He is training his army to come back and attack every fairy tale further.
What does the prince’s fate hold? Will he have to get a job?!
Since his father has disappeared (for now), he has no choice but to move on from his royal past and become a normal person. You’ll see him working clumsily, as he has never done housework before. Sad sad prince… FOR NOW.
What comes of the new happy endings for Red, Snow, and Cinder?
Red’s got some babies to take care of… pizza-eating babies!
Oh, Snow White? She’s gone to college to study different animals!
And Cinder’s doing a concert at PoptropiCon. She’s famous now!
What friendship blossoms between Little Red Riding Hood and the Seven Dwarves?
They all are happy. Red and the dwarves are working together to make pizza now, since the dwarves love it!
Does Snow White open her veterinary practice?
She’s started practicing on hamsters, dogs, cats, and other small animals, but she’s still studying how to care for the bigger ones!
Do the Huntsman and Cinderella fall in love? Hopefully the Huntsman’s left behind his homicidal hijinx…
The Huntsman goes to Grandma and apologizes for his mistake. He also gives her a wedding card… to celebrate his and Cinderella’s love! It seems like Cinder’s attention is not only on her music, but also her soon-to-be husband!
And what did Rumplestilskin do with the real king?
He is his slave now! Now the king is helping Rumple, sadly, but he wants to escape because he knows what a GREAT DISASTER is coming their way… THE GIRLS ARE HAPPY AND SAFE… FOR NOW.
What happens next is up to your imagination! Now, here are a few other ideas I had for gameplay on Fairytale Island…
🍕 Making pizza with Red: So instead of just starting the mini quest delivering the pizza, what if we would get to first find the ingredients inside a kitchen and then assemble a pizza?
📘 Finding a book for Snow White’s vet dream: Maybe along your adventures, you get a book from someone who was a vet, and later, you can give it to Snow to start her journey.
💄 Getting the lipstick as a real item: You get it in your backpack. Instead of Amelia telling you everything… you get a little suspicious. Then you discover that in the mountains, there lives a wizard who knows the difference between a good spell and a bad one. There’s another side-quest where you find this wizard, and when you find him, you show him the lipstick and he tells you it’s a trick. Then, going back to Snow, you find her “true love” (goat).
👗 Spending more time with Cinder: More parts to the journey with Cinder would be fun. Let’s say something happens to her dress, hair, makeup, and so on… you go through a few stages to get her closer and closer to the ball… and by the end, she becomes the fuming Cinder we know and love!
Thank you for reading! I liked the island, and I hope you like my opinions! If it won the Fairytale Fanfic Challenge, I would have tears in my eyes!
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! 📰✨
🏝️ Poptropica Help Blog 🗺️ 