Blast from the Past – Page 15 – 🏝️ Poptropica Help Blog 🗺️

Hey Poptropicans! Survival Ep. 5 released to members this past Thursday (and to the disappointment and outrage of non-members everywhere, PoptropiCon Ep. 1 has not come out for all) — but epic as MVB’s defeat may be, interesting developments in Poptropica don’t stop there! Read on for more! 😀

Home: medallion & sneak peeks

Some Poptropicans have noticed that, in their medallion collections, a new blank medallion has been inserted between those of Survival: Episode 1 and Mythology. If you hover over it, it says “Home not yet completed.” But what exactly is ‘Home‘?

Well, a few recent Daily Pop sneak peeks might give us a hint — and from the looks of it, it’s a “hub” area that involves character customization!

Iconic: Whatever you want, with the press of a button.

One Stop Shop: Say hello to our bundle of joy.

Just a Trim: Or an entire makeover, if you’d like.

Over on Poptrickia, Nice Hawk has uncovered that this “Home” world will be for Poptropica’s mobile app (currently available on iOS), and you can see the design still follows the “sky island” theme of the app’s “tutorial” island. Here are some sneak peeks, courtesy of Poptrickia:

In the first scene with the blimp, the blue box is for the logo of the island you last traveled to, and from here, you can enter the two customization buildings: the Bundles Shop and New You.

The Bundles Shop sells gold card costumes and items from the Store, but whether this will cost real money on the app remains to be seen. New You contains a barbershop with a Colorizer, where presumably you can change your hairstyle and colors. There are also three pedestals — perhaps a costume closet of sorts? We’ll have to wait and see!

Cosmoe on Main Street

Remember Cosmoe from the Funbrain graphic novel Galactic Hot Dogs? (By the way, GHD is publishing its first book in May 2015!) Anyway, Cosmoe has appeared a few times on Poptropica before, but now he’s here on Main Streets of islands like Mythology! If you click on him, you can chat with, Costumize (works for boys only), or friend him. (The Princess Dagger prize pack has also returned in places like 24 Carrot!)

If you chat, you can ask him a few pre-scripted questions: who are you? (Cosmoe) what’s in your hand? (my Goober Sword) and why are you standing here? (I’m waiting for Princess Dagger)

Earlier, we found that Cosmoe’s username was npc:cosmoe, but this doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. If you add npc:cosmoe now, you’ll find a random character wearing a birthday cake (was the account hijacked? however, it still shows as Cosmoe on the Avatar Studio).

New PHB page: Mystery of Shark Boy

Remember the PHB posts about the disappearance of Shark Boy? Well, now all the data we’ve collected regarding this strange case has been compiled into a new page, so you can get the whole story all in one place! Click here to check out our new article, also found under the “Cool Stuff” tab!

Poptropica vs. Thinknoodles

Recently, Poptropica has decided to create their own video walkthroughs narrated by Captain Crawfish — but what’s interesting is that, despite advertising on the Creators’ Blog and even the Poptropica homepage itself, the “official” walkthroughs are still not as popular as those of Poptropica player Thinknoodles, who also narrates his guides, but has videos for every island on his YouTube channel. Check out the view counts of both their PoptropiCon Ep. 1 walkthroughs — the numbers don’t lie!

think vs crawfish

The Creators only have video guides for PoptropiCon Ep. 1 and Survival Ep. 5 so far, and for both, it looks like Think is still in the lead, despite both being released on the same day! Noodle on, I say! 😛 (Also, doesn’t anyone else wonder why Crawfishy doesn’t use his own peg-legged avatar in his videos?)

By the way, we here at the PHB have some video walkthroughs too, which you can check out on our Poptropica Help Videos channel or HPuterpop’s channel. 🙂

More Poptropica pics from Nate Greenwall

You may remember when the PHB posted some highlights from Nate Greenwall’s Poptropica portfolio earlier, but over on his Facebook profile (that is his personal account, so be respectful if you choose to contact him!) are a few interesting glimpses into life at Poptropica HQ! (Click to enlarge pics.)

The white board we have at work hasn’t been erased for about 7 years.

Practicing my Hadoken skills.

Lunch with some of my fellow Poptropica co-workers.

Some of our Poptropica merchandise hanging around our office. Now we just need to build a ball pit and fill it with plush toys.

Isn’t that little doodle of Binary Bard cute? And that’s a lot of Poptropica toys – I don’t think some of it has even been released before, like those badges in the corner or the big print of the pink rocker girl! 😮

On a similar note, some other Poptropica Creators are on Facebook too: to name a few, Justin Lacy has Hazmat Hermit as his profile picture (and complains of having his corner of Poptropica’s office replaced with plush toys), and Jon Pitcher‘s icon is, of course, the “Jon” pitcher from Survival Ep. 4. Clever. 😉

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That’s all for now — hope you enjoyed this post! Keep on poppin’ on, Poptropicans.

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

More Land creations & PoptropiCon peeks

September 3, 2014September 9, 2014 Slanted Fish

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)

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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:

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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):

Collect Em All: Keep them in the original packaging and they may be worth dozens someday.

Victory: It’s in the cards.

Hall Pass: Low-pill carpet for a high-traffic area.

The Help: With an attitude like that, you’ll go far.

Look Closer: It’s what’s under the cap that matters.

Silver Age: This archer gets right to the point.

Marvelous: A real stand-up comic booth.

History Lesson: Golden age, silver age, outrage… we’ve got it all.

Brony: Don’t say no, here we go, off across the plain.

You Hall: The swag bag is loaded, but where’s the exit?

Off-Screen: But we’re monitoring the situation.

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!)

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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:

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? 😉

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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

August 31, 2014April 6, 2015 Spotted Dragon

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? 🙂

land Anyway, 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

August 25, 2014August 25, 2014 Spotted Dragon

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?

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.)

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

Labs (Land), Shark Boy Mystery

Shark shoutout & a closer look at Land

August 12, 2014August 12, 2014 Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans! So apparently it’s “Shark Week” on Discovery Channel, but of course when the Creators bring that up on their blog, what they’re really trying to do is shamelessly promote one of their islands. 😉 However, this note may be of interest for those who remember the Shark Boy scandal:

The second Island we ever released, way back in 2007, was Shark Tooth Island, which featured the massive Booga Shark, a helpful medicine man, and one very special boy whose name we no longer recall.

At least good old Captain Crawfish, Shark Boy’s successor, afforded him one last shoutout… 😦 #momentofsilence (and if you have no idea what I’m talking about, these posts should catch you up) Shark Boy was truly an icon of Poptropica’s earlier days, a name we won’t so easily forget!

(this and more awesome art can be found in the PHB magazine, POPCORN.)

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Moving on to newer things, the second evolution of Poptropica Land was recently released to members, and as promised, the PHB’s Poptropica Labs page has been updated to give you guys a more in-depth look at this cool new feature. Click here to view our Land walkthrough, which speaks of how to get the Svadilfari, materials you can unlock, and more! Here’s the Land trailer:

Poptropica’s official Twitter has already gotten right into it by showcasing some of their favorite creations so far! Here’s a look at a treehouse (made by Spotted Dragon of the ATP), submarine, and garden. Pretty creative stuff! 😀

If that’s not enough of a look at Land alpha version 2, check out this review by Spotted Dragon on her blog, or this video tour from Captain Spencer (below) — plus, stay tuned for HP’s video walkthrough!

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Lastly, some Poptropicans have noticed that the World Cup costumes are no longer to be found in the inventory. Brave Dolphin recently investigated this and got the following reply from Poptropica:

These are limited time expired items which are no longer available in the store or in the player inventory.

While the Creators did say the costumes wouldn’t be around forever, what’s weird is that they usually never take away Store-obtained item cards from players’ inventories (they only do it for ads, which this wasn’t). Strange, isn’t it? Share your thoughts in the comments! 😛