Category: App

Hey there, Poptropicans!

It’s Happy Lobster, and I’ve got some BIG NEWS for you:

Poptropica Worlds is available to be downloaded as an app on Google Play! It’s currently in open beta for Android, which means it’s not officially released yet, and as a result it may be unstable. But it’s here at last! Download at your own caution!

If you head over to the app’s page on the Google Play Store, you’ll find these new preview images, similar to the shiny ones we saw added for the classic Poptropica app:

So, these images basically convey most the same details as the images on the Poptropica App in Google Play and iTunes. But we can see a few new things in a couple of these pics, such as a few new costumes that aren’t in the original Pop or the Poptropica App images that showed us a glimpse of Worlds, and, much more interestingly, we can see some clear, customizable interiors of our brand-new house in Poptropica Worlds!

Here is the description of the Poptropica Worlds app on Google Play:

Explorers wanted! From the creators of the Poptropica games, now launches Poptropica Worlds. An exciting new game where every player gets to be the hero of their own story!

Venture the twists and turns only your Poptropican can journey.

Poptropica Worlds is a place where imagination and creativity allow you to explore, engage, and interact with a limitless universe of uncharted islands. You will be taken on an adventure through story-based islands that have you battling monsters, solving mysteries, and discovering exclusive locations as your personalized Poptropican avatar. With a world of possibilities, you get to be the writer of your own story.

EXPLORE POPTROPICA WORLDS: Check out different islands, play alongside other Poptropican heroes and villains, and dive into missions only your Poptropican can solve.

TAKE ON DARING QUESTS: Unravel the mysteries that lie in the caves of Crisis Caverns. A deadly supervolcano threatens Poptropica as we know it! To stop it, you must start an adventure taking you deep into the earth and explore areas that have yet to be discovered.

DECORATE YOUR HOUSE FOR YOUR STYLE: Located on your Home Island, this fully customizable House allows for you to create a place you can call your own. Check out the store for the latest additions you can use for a truly personalized look.

PLAY ON-THE-GO WITH YOUR DEVICE: Now you can have a seamless gaming experience between your web and mobile devices! Stay connected via the app to pick up exactly where you left off on your computer.

ENDLESS AVATAR CUSTOMIZATION: With more options than ever, create the avatar you want to best represent you in Poptropica Worlds.

Are you a Poptropican player already? No problem! Import your avatar and account details so you never miss a beat. Get started with this free game and embark on this new journey alongside your fellow Poptropicans!

Now, the only facet of this description that we really didn’t know about already is the part about Crisis Caverns’ plot. A deadly supervolcano threatens Poptropica, and to stop it, we must adventure through undiscovered areas deep below the earth? Interesting…

Anyway, onto the app itself. Again, because it’s technically in open beta, you can probably expect a few bugs here and there if you download it. Also note that this is only available on Android at the moment, so you will not find this on the iTunes App Store or for other devices just yet.

When you go onto the app, you’ll be prompted to either create a new player or log in (with your Poptropica Classic or Poptropica Worlds account). On Worlds, you can pick a player age up to 99, keep refreshing either part of the name options (as opposed to the whole name changing at once), and find yourself born on a cloud, not a box!

(For the following images, we’d like to thank BlazingAngel123! You can click to enlarge them.)

Once you’re ready to go, you’ll be faced with the map, which offers you three options: Home Island, Crisis Caverns, and Play the Original Poptropica! (The latter should bring you to the original, not-Worlds Poptropica game.) You can access the map again through the menu or your blimp on either island.

Let’s check out Home Island first – here you’ll find your home (of course), which is a nice wooden abode with fairy lights and nested among a big tree. Cliff Housebuff can introduce you to the process of decorating the interior. Your credits are going to come in handy!

Over on the other side of the beach island, you’ll find the daily spin wheel manned by one Captain Scuttlebutt. He may seem like a weirdo, but you’re going to want those credits!

Taking Amelia Earhart’s place in the middle is a new character called Paula Pureheart, who basically offers the same kind of information about exploring Poptropica. Now, back to the blimp!

And yes, it’s true: we get to play Crisis Caverns! In order not to spoil too much right now, and to keep this post at a reasonable length, we’ll review the island more in-depth in a later post. In the meantime, here are a few pictures:

You can see from these pictures that the interfaces and menu is rather button-based, similar to what the current Poptropica looks like as of recently but with some differences. The inventory now pops up at the bottom, with items not having their own card, but showing up in the middle of the screen when clicked on.

A more noteworthy feature is the new Quest Log, which gives you a bar for island progress and lists tasks you have left to do. It can be a bit spoiler-y if you haven’t gotten quite that far to know about certain events, though. Still, it’s a handy feature and a nice answer to our request for a hint system in last year’s Open Letter from the PHB!

If you click on the menu in the top corner, you’ll see options for: Save, Shop (brings you to the Store for clothing), Closet, Inbox (not currently available, but presumably we’ll receive messages this way), Travel (brings you to the map), and Settings.

Your credit count is displayed in the top-left corner, along with a membership icon prompting you to buy membership if you haven’t already. Not to worry, though: you can net a decent sum of credits by spinning the daily wheel, and completion of Crisis Caverns (and presumably other islands) will grant you 500 credits, a boost from the usual 150. You can also earn (less) credits by re-playing islands.

You may notice if you browse through the Shop (for either clothing or furniture) that some items are for members only, but free players still have plenty to choose from. A new thing that’s pretty neat is that you can purchase clothing items individually, instead of getting the whole costume at once, so you can just get the parts you like and it’s more affordable, too!

Anyway, there’s quite a bit to explore, so if you have an Android device and can’t wait much longer, feel free to check out the app now (but don’t expect it to run perfectly)! As for when it should release for real, and on other devices as well, we can’t be too sure – but Poptropica did hint over on Twitter that it could be VERY SOON…

This tweet suggests that it could come out by the end of this month, and there’s only a week and a half left until the end of May, which is coming up fast! With the Android app already on version 1.0, it can’t be much longer now.

Pretty exciting stuff, right?? What are your thoughts so far? Have you played the beta yet? Got any favorite items and features? Tell the world in the comments below! 😀