It’s a fine time to check out 2009! With both the Poptropica Creators’ Blog and Poptropica Help Blog in full swing, the online Poptropica community was growing exponentially, even inspiring new fan sites.
The year kicked off with Big Nate Island in February, after months of Big Nate comics shared on the Creators’ Blog.
While sneak peeks for upcoming islands from the Creators were wildly popular, the PHB took a step further and started a series known as PHB Sneak Peeks. These were glances at things even the Creators hadn’t revealed:
Over on the PHB, we were up to lots of shenanigans as well. In April, for example, we had great success with our “Club Penguin Help Blog” prank that fooled even the Poptropica Creators — if only for a little while.
That summer, the Poptropica community grew to include a Poptropica Help Forum (the PHF was created by Coderkid, who later became PHB staff) and Poptropica Help Chat (PHC) (which was hosted on Xat). Both brought good times, but only the PHC remains to this day, and we’re on Discord now.
We also began a monthly Poptropica magazine, and PHB readers voted on the name The Poptropican’s 911, for all your Poptropica emergencies. The first issue was published in June, and the series ran for a year. Also in June, the long-awaited Astro-Knights Island was released!
Comic by Green Seal, who later became a PHB staff blogger.
Another big thing that happened in Poptropica in 2009 was the launch of the store. (Can you even imagine a Poptropica without the store??) A hundred credits were given for each island completed, and players happily bought cool new items like the Colorizer, Electrify, and more. Credits could also be bought with real money. The store looked a little different back then, too.
On July 26, the PHB celebrated its first birthday – and by then had reached 1.5 million site views. A few days later, the Multiverse feature was released, and that became the staple way of partying it up on Poptropica. (Too bad it’s no longer around… but we do still have common rooms and clubhouses.)
To wrap up the year, Counterfeit Island finally came out (in its early access period, and after half a year of waiting!) in late December, bringing the map total up to ten islands. (Counterfeit and Astro-Knights were the only islands with early access tickets.)
Before membership, players could buy an early access ticket to a new island for 500 credits in the store.
That concludes the 2009 page of the Poptropica Yearbook! Stay tuned for the next pages, and soon you’ll be able to view the complete series on a new page in our Pop Plus collection, titled The Poptropica Yearbook.
While you’re here, sign the yearbook by commenting? ✏️
This post is part of our Poptropica Yearbook series. If you missed the intro, check it out on the 2007 Rewind. And now, let’s turn back the clock…
It’s not too late to revisit the year 2008! Though Poptropica had started off just the year before with one island, six more had appeared by the end of the following year: Shark Tooth, Time Tangled (known as Time Twisted before its release), 24 Carrot, Super Power, and Spy. They all fit on one map page!
It was right in the midst of the launch of Super Power Island that two big hotspots in the Poptropica universe made their debut. First, on July 17, 2008, the Poptropica Creators’ Blog was born.
The OG Poptropica Creators’ Blog in 2008. This is their first post.
Just nine days later, on July 26, this very blog — the Poptropica Help Blog, then known as Scary Tomato’s Weblog — was created! As the only active Poptropica fan site around, it soon gained lots of interest, garnering over 100K site views by November. In addition to island guides, sneak peeks of upcoming islands from the Creators also generated tons of buzz.
The first staff members were recruited to join 11-year-old Slanted Fish (then known as Scary Tomato): Smockers, an 11-year-old blogger; and Codien, a 16-year-old graphic designer who gave the PHB its name, first logo, and redesigned headers (this one was for Halloween!):
But back to Poptropica. It was a much simpler time back then, and believe it or not, even the Costumizer tool was new, released in early 2008. To make things interesting, the Creators would occasionally release bonus customizables to be found. Rather than being items, they’d simply be put on your character.
But the most exciting customization came when some strange new parts leaked, not intentionally placed by the Pop Creators. They were known as “Monster Carnival” leaks, named after a then-fabled island that would be enshrouded in mystery for many years to come.
Pretty cool, right? And the fun was just getting started…
You’ve reached the end of the 2008 page of the Poptropica Yearbook! Stay tuned for the next chapter, and to view the entire collection, check out the Poptropica Yearbook in our Pop Plus collection.
While you’re here, sign the yearbook by commenting? ✏️
Hey Poptropicans! Have you ever wondered what Poptropica was like in its earliest stages? You’re about to find out.
Over the next few weeks, here on the Poptropica Help Blog, we’ll be bringing you our Rewind series for years past, culminating into a full Poptropica Yearbook. We thought it would be fun to take a nostalgic look at where we’ve come from, and where Poptropica has taken us, so get ready for a blast into the past! Our first stop: the year 2007.
Poptropica was officially launched to the public in September 2007, although the exact date has been forgotten in the sands of time. From what we’ve heard, even the yellow blimp hadn’t arrived yet — with Early Poptropica being the only island around, you simply fell into a hole to begin your adventures.
While no Poptropica blogs had yet sprung up to document these beginnings, an old YouTube video uploaded by Codien, an old friend/former staffer on the PHB, gives us a glimpse into what Poptropica was like back in the day.
Notice the ‘BETA’ beside the Poptropica logo at the top (and ignore the recording software watermark). Apparently, the game was still considered to be in a beta testing stage back then — look at those primitive icons for the Items and Map!
Here’s some more fun stuff. The Poptropica Creators shared these images of some prototype designs of what Poptropican characters might’ve looked like, as well as concepts for how Poptropica gameplay might’ve turned out.
And one final tidbit: did you know that Poptropica was almost named Poptropolis? In that same post about concepts, the Creators shared, “If a competitor didn’t come up with a similar-sounding name, we never would’ve had the islands of Poptropica.”
That competitor, by the way, was Nicktropolis, a virtual world by Nickelodeon that, unlike Pop, didn’t last. As former Creator Mitch Krpata confirms in an interview years later, it’s because of the “tropic” part of the name that they came up with the idea of separate island adventures.
Anyway, that concludes the 2007 page of the Poptropica Yearbook! Stay tuned for the next pages… we’ll be traveling from 2008 to 2013. (From 2014 onwards, we started our end-of-year Rewind series, which pretty much covers the same thing!) In fact, you’ll be able to view the complete series on a new page in our Pop Plus collection, titled The Poptropica Yearbook.
While you’re here, sign the yearbook by commenting? ✏️
What’s up, Poptropicans? The year is wrapping up, and that could only mean one thing—it’s time for our 2018 rewind!
Every year, we reflect back on the events regarding Poptropica and the community surrounding it. So, what happened this year?
Part 1: Poptropica (Worlds & Original)
2018 started out with what would probably be the biggest event of the year—the member release of Poptropica Worlds’ third full island quest, Greek Sea Odyssey, in February. (It released to all in mid-March.) Check out our Island Review!
Things unfortunately took a turn for the worse as the end of the month approached… Several employees (all with senior positions) were sadly laid off. Because of this, we made some speculations regarding Poptropica’s financial status.
In March, the misfortune continued when @Poptropica unexpectedly unfollowed hundreds of accounts (including me… not salty at all, ahem) on Twitter, with no follow-up explanation. (Though the PHB’s official Twitter, @Poptropica_Help, is one of a few still followed by Poptropica.) It caught many people off guard, to say the least. Even former Poptropica social media manager Skinny Moon had something to say about it.
On the flip side, March Prizes went on throughout the month, where special items were hidden on a different island each week. If you found it, you got to keep it!
April brought us a few new series on the Poptropica Creators’ Blog which included Outfits of the Week, Island Highlight, and Guess the Island—all of which have since discontinued. The writing wasn’t exactly high caliber, either.
Not much happened in August, but September was a great month for Poptropica. First and foremost, Poptropica celebrated their 11th birthday by releasing a funny-looking Birthday Candle costume—free for everyone!
Poptropica also held a small-scale #SpookyPop Photo Booth contest, featuring just a couple pics on their Instagram. In larger news was the Home Island overhaul, which brought unopened buildings like the Blast-Off Arcade, Pet Barn, and more.
December started out with the 12 Days of Member Gifts, an extension of the monthly Member Gifts benefit with, for the first time since it began, new original items. Snow arrived on Home Island, text chat arrived at the Blast-Off Arcade, and towards the very end came the biggest feature of all: clubhouses!
The PHB posted three times as much as the Poptropica Creators’ Blog this year—about 180 posts to their almost 60.
In fact, at 59 posts in 2018, it’s the Creators’ Blog’s lowest yearly post count yet—even lower than the 64 from when the blog began in mid-2008. While they did maintain a social media presence, the lack of a personable social media manager left a disconnect between players and Creators worsened by infrequent updates.
To make up for the missing communications on the part of the Pop Creators, we at the PHB have been hard at work bringing you the latest and greatest in all things Poptropica. Here’s what we’ve been up to this year as a community:
In August, we held our first ever PHB Header Contest, and the winning design (by Gentle Dolphin) was displayed as our blog banner for the month of September!
November and December were quieter months here on the PHB, but they were surprisingly active ones for Poptropica (see above). To conclude 2018…
Tributes
There is one final section to go in this Rewind post, and that’s the tributes for the 4 PHB staff authors who left this year. (Poptropica isn’t the only place with departures, but at least these were willingly so.) Thank you, again, to these delightful Poptropicans:
Before joining the PHB team, Happy Lobster blogged on several Poptropica fan sites, including his own, the now-defunct A Quota of Poptropica. Having worked with the PHB for about a year and a half, HL has contributed some fun posts including a Pop-over of Inside Out characters, a Pop 5 for beautiful scenes, and more. Wherever he goes, we hope he stays happy!
Ah, Brave Tomato, a PHB legend. The longest-staying PHB staffer thus far (other than Slanted Fish, the creator of the PHB, who’s still around), BT has been with the blog since 2012. In her six years here, and more within the greater Poptropica community, BT has done a lot: she’s revisited most of the islands on her YouTube channel, created tons of Poptropica fan art and fan fiction, and more. Named the 2018 recipient of “Best PHB Author” at the Poppies, BT is known for her love of mythology, accuracy in Pop theories, and hunger for lore, among many other great qualities. We give her 10/10 fresh, brave tomatoes.
That’s 2018! We the Poptropica Help Blog have been around for 10+ years now, and we look forward to even more poppin’ times with all of you. Thanks for being a part of our journey, and we’ll see you in the new year. Keep on popping, Poptropicans!
Hey, Poptropicans! It’s finally the end of 2017—what an eventful year for all of us.
To continue an annual PHB tradition, I, Slippery Raptor, present to you… the PHB’s 2017 Rewind! This tradition commemorates and reflects back on to the biggest Poptropica highlights of the year, from the game to the community. It also serves as a yearbook of sorts for the PHB community.
Time flies by us so quickly that we may barely notice when we’re already at its end. Good thing we have this Rewind series to turn back the hands of the clock!
Prepare yourselves as we walk down the memory lane and flip through four chapters of 2017. Now, take a deep breath as we enter a whole new world. Here we go…
Poptropica Worlds was this year’s most-awaited update from Poptropica, but before we talk about its grand release, let’s go back all the way to January…
It all began with a video teaser that announced the forthcoming of the New Poptropica, now with a new name, “Poptropica Worlds,” with hints from the Creators of the features to come with the new update. This was, then, followed by a series of leaked images and scenes from Crisis Caverns (which was then rumored to be part of Poptropica Worlds, and it was)!
Another month went by, and Poptropicans became even more restless and impatient for the new game to come. On the PHB, Slanted Fish wrote an opinion piece on the long wait for the overhaul project that was, by that time, already under significant delay.
Finally, Poptropica released anFAQ page for a bunch of queries pertaining to Poptropica Worlds! To further quench the fans’ thirst for more updates, they even showed previews on Google Play on what to expect in the impending update:
Poptropica
Poptropica’s Mysteries
50+ islands
1000+ Store items
Challenge Your Friends
Soon after, Poptropica teased out some more Poptropica Worlds art: a glimpse into a player home and the new avatar style. Excitement continued to grow with the release of an exclusive pre-beta kit sent only to a select few in the Poptropica community, including the PHB team, who were invited to share its #NewPopDrop contents with everyone. The kit contained a massive behind-the-scenes look at what was to come in Worlds.
The final sneak peeks came as silhouettes of various items were posted on the Creator’s Blog and Poptropica social media person Skinny Moon promising that there were “more to come.”
It finally brought joy to the world and the whole Poptropica community when Poptropica Worlds was released in late May, first on Android, and then on desktop shortly after. What an amazing milestone it is for everyone that Poptropica Worlds had finally come! (We wrote a review on the new game in comparison to the old: check it out!)
In June, Poptropica Worlds featured its first advertisement in-game: Cars 3, with a similar approach to how one type of ad worked in the original Poptropica—watch a video for a free item. Sadly, we’ve yet to see any ad games in Worlds.
Also in June, we put out our review for the newly-released Crisis Caverns Island.
July came with a handful of updates for Poptropica Worlds. First, the remastered 24 Carrot Island was welcomed in with brand new characters and a more enriched plot! (Check out our review here.)
We also had a big summer update that featured the first home expansion, color-changing outfits, and brought back the Colorizer—one awesome way to celebrate summer!
What happened next? Well, in August, Poptropica finally released a video trailer for Pop Worlds! It included lots of sneak peeks and references to the original Poptropica and future updates to come. Exciting! The PHB also got a stellar new logo this month.
Onto the last three months of 2017! October brought a new mini-game to Poptropica Worlds: Dr. Hare’s Revenge—quite odd for his disappearance in the initial release, but good thing he was later added in a recent update!
November passed with more Poptropica videos, and then December came with the final update of the year: a hare-raising Dr. Hare update! We got another room expansion for our houses and finally saw the winning designs of the past year’s costume contest added to the shop on Worlds.
It may not be quite as eventful as Poptropica Worlds this year, but we still received a handful of updates on the original Poptropica. So let’s cover some of the other, non-Worlds happenings around Poptropica HQ—and the fandom community!
Fast-forwarding in February, the first major update we got from Poptropica was the announcement of the #MyPoptropicaCostume contest winners, wherein the Mermaid and Hip-Hop costumes were both declared grand prize winners!
We also celebrated Valentine’s Day with a #PoptropicaLove contest using the Valentine-themed Photo Booth, all set to spread the love to the community.
“Ocean Princess” by Creepy Peanut
“Hip-Hop Boy” by Speedy Toes
In March, with the snow still falling in Boston, Poptropica added a brand new game to Home Island: Snowpocalypse! The game is a crazy snowball fight with characters from various islands we know and love. Here’s Zeus getting pelted:
Moreover with the madness, Poptropica also decided to bring back classic costumes and power cards to the store! Not only that, we also saw the arrival of the Home Island Movie Theater—although, it wasn’t at all what we were hoping for.
Jumping to July, Mitch Krpata once again came into the limelight with an interview on a podcast called The Oddball Show, where he talked about Poptropica (among other things), and which we recapped here. We also bid our farewells to beloved Poptropica Creator Skinny Moon, who left her position to continue her previous career as a freelance copywriter and social media strategist.
In August, Poptropica challenged players to be a part of the #FreeThe15 challenge that rewarded us with 21 new items for our homes on Poptropica Worlds.
Then in September, we celebrated the highly anticipated10th birthday celebration of Poptropica, which came with grinning monkey hats—both on Poptropica Original and on Worlds! The festivities also included a membership contest with quite a peculiar task. Nonetheless, the party raged on as Poptropica finally unveiled the concluding chapter to the graphic novel tetralogy, The End of Time. (Check out our book review here!)
Not much happened in October, though the Poptropica Comics did return with Jorge and Oliver still onto their mischievous misadventures. November came with a Thanksgiving giveaway that made us search for missing followers around Poptropica.
In December, we concluded the year with the re-introduction of the mini-game Legendary Swords to Poptropica Original. At first, the re-release was members-only, but the Creators later opened it for everyone.
Wowie, what a 2017 for Poptropica! Let’s head into the next chapter…
Our community has been witness to many events this year, both fun and serious, and it’s these things that make us a formidable community. Let this chapter help us recall the memories we’ve shared in 2017.
In January, we welcomed a brand new post series to the blog: Community Creations! This monthly series features the creative works of Poptropicans that revolve around a given theme each month, with PHB staffer Spotted Dragon spearheading each round. Over the months, we’ve seen some amazing fan art. Here is just a handful:
March came along and, prompted by a PHB post by Perfect Sky calling for giving more love to smaller Poptropica fan blogs, a movement began, known as #SaveTheCommunity and later #PopBlogsMatter. To that end, the Poptropica Bloggers Network (PBN) headed up by Purple Claw and Hyper Gamer—which is dedicated to helping smaller Poptropica blogs—saw a revival, and fan blogs outside of the PHB continued to flourish.
April brought along yet another April Fools’ prank from the PHB: PopFeedz! This was a joke site we made that took the PHB as we know it and spun it into a more Buzzfeed-esque version of our site. Lots of you really liked it! You can check out the original over on popfeedz.wordpress.com.
In May, something pretty exciting happened for the PHB and other fan sites: VIP status! There hasn’t been a ton happening in this department, but it’s nice to get that recognition after so many years.
June was a fulfilling month: we launched our Write for the PHB campaign, to empower all of you with the how-to of contributing to our site. We also had a PHB special that featured Popsonas of the PHB staff. The month concluded with us coordinating Poptropica’s first-ever Pride Party, in which we celebrated love in its many forms.
Then in July, the PHB’s birthday month, we hosted our annual Poppies Awards! From nominations to the awards ceremony, we had lots of fun and hope you did too. To celebrate some more, we also put together a collection of Greatest PHB Posts and walked through a gallery of PHB headers over the years. Happy 9th birthday to the PHB!
October was filled with fright as we hosted our 9th annual Halloween costume contest, which took entries from both Poptropica Original and Worlds, with both games putting out their Halloween costumes at the front of their stores. Also, we were finally introduced to Dave, who had been making videos for Poptropica’s YouTube channel for quite some time.
November passed with some more videos from Dave and livestreamer Stephanie, and we also hit a biggie: 30 million views on the PHB! Thank you all so much!
In December we held our annual Holiday Party, with a special guest: Unwilling Santa Zeus! PHB staffer Lucky Joker also debuted one of our biggest blog specials ever: 100 Years of Fashion, Poptropica-style.
To continue a tradition from last year’s Rewind, I now invite you to the Tributes, a section dedicated to keeping the memories of the PHB staff who left us this year:
Ultimate iPad Expert 📱 — 2015–2017
Before he joined the PHB team, Ultimate iPad Expert served as an admin on the Poptropica Wiki. A meme entry for HPuterpop’s fan art contest led to inspiration for more memes, and soon enough, Poptropican Meme Face Mondays was born. PMFM lasted a whopping 70 rounds, and UiPE himself earned his legendary moniker, “Meme King”—plus the 2016 title for Best PHB Author! Wherever he is now, I trust that he’s living his ultimate best. Long live the Meme King!
Perfect Sky ⛅ — 2016–2017
Long before she became a member of the PHB staff, Perfect Sky was renowned for her Poptropica movies on YouTube. Besides her creativity, she is known for having a passionate heart for the Poptropica community who is never afraid to stand for what she believes in. She’s someone with a heart of gold and we thank her for everything she has done for the community. Thanks for making the skies perfect, PS!
Slippery Raptor 💦 — 2014–2017
I’m sure you’re least expecting this thing to happen here, right? But, this is really happening. Prepare your tissues.
This is the end for me, everyone, and I would just like to extend my deepest gratitude to the whole PHB staff (both current and former) for giving me this opportunity. Being part of this community and blogging here has simply been a surreal experience. Before I joined, I remember dreaming of joining the staff by spamming the comments section with “Can I be an author here?” It’s so funny that, years later, I found my place here, and would actually stay for a few years more than I had expected.
I’m also thankful for the whole Poptropica community: you all are so amazing, crazy talented, and even so silly sometimes. I’m so happy to have witnessed so many changes in Poptropica and in our community that I felt very much involved with, and that’s something I won’t forget. Thanks to all my friends out there! I hope I can still drop by on Discord here and there.
Just to briefly explain my departure: I have a lot on my plate right now, with college around the corner, academics and organizations to balance, and other things. I also cannot deny the inevitability of growing up and my feelings of “outgrowing” the game. Another factor would be the arrival of Poptropica Worlds, which is not a bad thing, but it isn’t quite the same as the Poptropica I grew up with—plus, updates have been more scarce. I do hope you understand that and trust me, it’s something everyone will go through eventually.
To the next author who will succeed me, I hope you enjoy being a PHB staff member! And to everyone else, stay awesome as you always have been doing, and continue the awesomeness we’ve started. I don’t want this to be too much of a long, melodramatic piece, but I hope you’ll all keep moving forward for me. Carpe diem—seize the day. I wish you all the best of luck!
May God bless you all so much. Thank you, and that will be all.
2017, everyone! What a crazy rollercoaster ride—filled with ups, downs, and even loops! In the midst of all the good and bad that have crossed our paths in the past year, let’s put them behind us and look forward to the new year. As we all transition to a whole new world in Poptropica Worlds, I do hope that you’ll enjoy every update yet to come.
Thank you all for riding with us in 2017. As we ring in the new year, a new chapter in the PHB’s life begins as we look forward to our 10th birthday in July. We wouldn’t want to miss it for the world!
We here at the PHB hope to continue what we started back in 2008: our unwavering passion towards Poptropica and its community. We hope you enjoyed 2017 as much as we did! See you in 2018, Poptropicans!
Before he joined the PHB team, Ultimate iPad Expert served as an admin on the 
🏝️ Poptropica Help Blog 🗺️ 