Advertisements, Labs (Land)

Disney Infinity & Mr. Peabody ads, plus more Lands

Hey guys! We already know that the BoxTrolls ad has been showing up on some islands, but two new ads have popped up too. Unlike a lot of ads, these don’t come with a “quest” or “game”, just a video for one and a click for the other.

First up is Disney Infinity, which now includes superheroes. You can find it on Reality TV Island. All you have to do is watch a video to earn your prize, which is a “Bring on the Super Heroes” power. When activated, a screen appears with a few Marvel super heroes, but that is pretty much it.

The second ad is for Mr. Peabody and Sherman, coming to Blu-Ray and DVD on October 14. You can find it on Steamworks Island, and all you have to do is click it to earn your two prizes: a pink Cake Costume and a link to take Penny’s Personality Quiz (which tells you somewhere you should visit).

I mainly wanted to tell you guys about these ads because the pink cake costume would go great with Poptropica’s birthday balloon and costume! Sadly, it wasn’t here in time for the PHB’s party (which you can see the recap for here).

Also, the Creators recently featured some more awesome new Land creations on their Twitter page:

Amazing work! The Creators even said that Big Raptor’s creation was their favorite yet. It’s kind of hard to see, but the interior design definitely is detailed. 😉

~SD

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Island, Labs (Land)

Charlie post, Pop birthdate, more Land & music from Jeff Heim

Hey Poptropicans! This is going to be another mega-post on the many Poptropica-related things happening recently – but while you’re reading the PHB, don’t miss out on the new BoxTrolls ad, Survival Ep. 5 for members, the upcoming “Home” feature, and more news from the posts below! 😀

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Poptropica: A Story You Can Play

catcf 50th

In honor of the 50th anniversary of Roald Dahl’s beloved story, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Poptropica has been revealing some of their creative process in turning the timeless tale into one of its many Islands. The second post of what will be a three-part series is now up on RoaldDahl.com, so click here to check it out the whole thing – and here’s a little excerpt from their post:

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a beloved story. No wonder it’s been made into two movies and a stage musical (and even other video games). Because we consider story to be the most important part of a Poptropica Island, this, too, was both a challenge and an opportunity when bringing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Poptropica.

How do we re-tell a familiar tale, full of beloved characters and situations, while adding an unpredictable new character: the player? How do we make the player a part of the story without changing the story, but allowing the player the sense of freedom and control that a video game requires?

[To read the rest of Poptropica’s entry, click here!]

If you haven’t seen their first post, you can click here to read it, and check out their gallery of behind-the-scenes images on the Creators’ Blog or right here on the PHB. A great story complemented by a great island adventure with its own unique spin – and if you’re planning on playing it, our Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Island Guide may come in handy! 🙂

When exactly is Poptropica’s birthday?

Since its third year, every year, Poptropica has celebrated its birthday in the month of September – but never with an exact birthday date mentioned. This year will be Poptropica’s 7th year, and in response to a question from Slippery Raptor, Poptropica revealed over Twitter that Poptropica’s birth took the entire month of September (2007) — hence the celebrations being not on any one single day.

pop 7th bday date

This year, however, they’re planning to have their festivities on the 18th – which is this Thursday! We can probably expect a birthday costume with a “7” b’day balloon, and maybe some balloons in the common rooms. In the past, they’ve also re-released retired items — we’ll just have to wait and see what’s in store for this year’s party! :mrgreen:

More featured Land creations

Poptropica Land: alpha version 2 may have been around for a while now, but the Creators are constantly being impressed by all the elaborate creations Poptropica members are making. Here are the latest to be featured on their official Twitter (click to enlarge images):

If you just can’t get enough of looking at other Poptropicans’ Lands, then check out the PHB post featuring the winners of our Land Construction Contest! And for some tips on getting started with Land, check out our Poptropica Labs/Land guide.

More Poptropica music from Jeff Heim

The PHB has previously mentioned Jeff Heim, Poptropica’s resident (and very talented) music composer — and while the recent release of Poptropica’s first ever music album may be unavailable to some due to cost, listening to Jeff’s Soundcloud tracks is totally free!

If you haven’t checked out his Poptropica collection in a while, you may now notice that he’s added several new tracks, mostly owing to the recent Survival and Mission Atlantis episodes.

In the comments of the “Science Fair” track, you may even notice Jeff’s response to HPuterpop saying that he “uploaded this track in part because I noticed you used it at the end of your Survival 3 Walk-through video”! Awesome.

One of my personal favorites, though, is the jaunty little tune that is PoptropiCon’s main theme. It just builds up to sound really epic as you get into it, plus it can get pretty catchy. 😀

Don’t miss out on all the other cool things happening in Poptropica lately — you can catch up with all the PHB posts below! Keep on popping on, Poptropicans.

Daily Pop Sneak Peeks, Labs (Land), PoptropiCon Island, Shark Boy Mystery, Social Media, Super Villain Island

More Land creations & PoptropiCon peeks

Hey Poptropicans — friendly reminder that the PHB’s Land Construction Contest ends this Friday, Sept 5th, so if you haven’t sent in your greatest Land creation to us yet, get building and click here for the post with instructions on how to enter! Or, if you’ve made something that caught the Creators’ eyes like Magic Fire‘s self sculpture (she’s a PHB reader too – hi MF!) and Young Fish‘s panoramic port city have, you might even be featured on the Creators’ Blog! (click to view full images)

Have you ever wondered why Poptropica tends to release islands on Thursdays? While this doesn’t explain why Thursday exactly (Friday in some time zones), they did recently address the question (brought up by Poptrickia) via their official Twitter:

weekends off

PoptropiCon (guide here) had its first episode debut just last week for members, but if you’re wondering what’s up next, a good place to look are the Daily Pop sneak peeks. Let’s take a look at what we’ll be seeing inside the convention center (click to enlarge images):

Among all the random tidbits, it looks like there’ll be a booth for a comic hero called Elf Archer — created by some guy called “Stan Ditko”: a reference to Marvel Comics co-creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Plus, there’s even a Balloon Boy collectible that can be seen on a table!

And not far from the My Little Pony mimicry (“Pony Bros”… even the Daily Pop’s caption is “Brony”), there’s a poster for “Lava Twins” — it may be a long shot, but could this be a reference to a film called The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl? Yes, you read that right, “Shark Boy”: like the beloved Poptropica character who no longer is. (You can read all about the Shark Boy Mystery here!)

sharkmuseum

Although it’s been about two years and ten islands since Super Villain Island, Brave Tomato recently uncovered this little snippet of Poptropica Creator Jeff Kinney working on it on a computer. It may not look like much, but it’s a pretty neat find nonetheless:

jeff working on svi

This came from a “making of” bonus feature on the Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days DVD, where they talked briefly about Jeff and Poptropica. (Jeff is also the author of the Wimpy Kid series.) Speaking of Jeff Kinney, I wonder if/when we’ll get to see his ice bucket challenge? 😉

In other news, issue 19 of the PHB magazine, The POPCORN, releases this Sunday, Sept 7th, so be sure to have your creative entries sent in to phbpopcorn(at)gmail(dot)com before then! That’s all for now (or TAFN, as HP the hip one likes to say)! Keep on poppin’ on, Poptropicans. 🙂

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Island, Labs (Land), Mission Atlantis Island, Nintendo DS Game, PoptropiCon Island

Thursday wrap-up: Land pets, DS trailer, & CatCF pics

As you guys know, a lot of stuff happened this past Thursday. This post will be a wrap-up of all the updates/announcements, other than the release of PoptropiCon and Mission Atlantis (already mentioned by Samwow5).

However I do want to say that PoptropiCon has to be one of my favorite islands right now. I love how there were random Poptropicans (that you could customize) that just roamed around the island (along with the Poptropicans you could actually talk to). It made it feel more like real life, ya know? 🙂

landAnyway, let’s get to it, shall we? First off, PopLand has been updated to include animals. Most of them will harm you, but a few are nice and will mind their own business. (For the PHB’s guide to Land, click here!) Sadly, the furniture that we saw in the sneak peek was nowhere to be found or earned. Hopefully they will be added soon because in my opinion, the animals aren’t that big of a deal. They can hurt us, but while we can’t tame them, we can get rid of them by bringing them to lava. Click to enlarge the images:

To emphasize the update, the PopLand tour page now reads:

Don’t be surprised if you find yourself face to face with a blue-feathered tigerphant or an elusive fox monkey while exploring in Poptropica Land! Strange creatures will be showing up in the next version of the Poptropica Land labs project. Just be careful, they’re not all friendly!

You may also get an invitation to take a survey about Land, which you can check out here. From past experience, the Creators do listen to our suggestions, so be sure to let them know what you’d like to see in future Land updates!

In other news, the Forgotten Islands 3DS game that was recently mentioned now has a trailer! The title of the video indicates that the game will only be available in North America (at first/for now?).

As the video says, it will be released on October 14, 2014, but you can pre-order it now. According to the Creators…

The 3DS version of Forgotten Islands includes all of the content from the iOS game, including seasonal costume packs, and is presented in stereoscopic 3D! You’ve never seen Poptropica like this before.

…so if you’ve played it before, it’ll probably be the same game, just on the DS. 😉 To see what the iOS version of Forgotten Islands is like, check out the PHB’s walkthrough here!

Now onto our last big subject. The Creators wanted to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by showing us some of the concept art (and their final versions) they made for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Island, which came out in 2012.

We will show you the pictures below, but to see what the Creators had to say, click here. Poptropica also got to post on the actual Roald Dahl website, which you can read by clicking here. Note that the two posts are not the same, so you probably want to check out both of them (click to enlarge images). 😉

What did you think about everything on Thursday? Pop in by commenting on this post! 🙂

~SD

Labs (Land), Nintendo DS Game

Forgotten Islands (DS) & Land: what’s to come

forgotten islands 3ds

Is that a new Poptropica video game?! Hmm… remember Brave Tomato’s post where she mentioned a certain part of the Creators’ Blog that hinted at a new video game in the sidebar?

20140716-075450-28490737.jpg

Well, her findings have paid off! According to a recent tweet from the Creators, this new video game will be coming soon. Specifically, the game is for 3DS and is called Poptropica: Forgotten Islands. Sound familiar? Yep, it was an iOS app. Below are previews to what the game will hold:

Poptropica: Forgotten Islands for the 3DS will come out on October 14, 2014, but you can pre-order it now for about $30. By clicking the link in the previous sentence, you can also see the synopsis and other details for the game. If it’s anything like the iOS version that already exists, though, you can read all about it and see plenty of screenshots in the PHB’s walkthrough!

In other news, we are expecting another Poptropica Land update soon. A recent Poptropica tweet gives hints for what will be added in the update. (Click to enlarge the image.)

popland update

As you can see, the sneak peek shown above features furniture (a table, an armoire/cabinet, and a suit of armor), plus various animals. Hopefully we will get to play with these features (and more?) soon enough. Plus, will we possibly be able to customize parts of the animals? They do look fairly Poptropican size. 🙂

~SD