Creators – Page 3 – 🏝 Poptropica Help Blog 🗺

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…

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!
Jess Brallier

~🐠

Creators, Fairy Tale Island, Fan Art Features, Social Media

The Fairy Fan Art Challenge

April 14, 2021June 6, 2021 LJ

Greetings Poptropicans, it’s LJ with some thrilling news about a new Poptropica contest! This just in: the fairy fan art challenge is now underway.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Official Poptropica (@poptropicacreators)

Thanks to IsaacEntertains for bringing this to my attention!

In celebration of the upcoming Fairy Tale Island (the first winner of the Dream Island contest from last year), the creators are holding a competition calling all artists who are up to participate.

The idea is to illustrate your favorite character, scene, and/or item from your favorite tale in the Poptropica style. All types of media are acceptable and your drawing can be as simple or as intricate as you’d like. To enter, simply post your creation to Instagram making sure to tag the official Poptropica account (@poptropicacreators) or submit through Poptropica’s submissions form. Easy-peasy!

The prize? There will be 3 winners chosen, and not only will the team of creators (along with every Poptropican who pays any attention to the PCB and Poptropica’s social media) see your work, you’ll also be rewarded with in-game credits. How many? That is yet to be discovered… Anyway, you have until April 21 — a mere week from now — to get your entries in, so you don’t want to procrastinate on this one.

Also FYI, Fairytale Island is set to be releasing the day after on April 22! How exciting… it’s not a dream (hopefully)! The wait has actually been pretty short which is a little out of character for Poptropica at this point, so that gets me wondering about the quality of the gameplay we’ll be receiving. I’m a little ambivalent if I’m going to be honest, but I’ll try to find some more optimism.

What about you? Will you be getting involved in the fantasy fun? Let us know in the comments below. Thank you for reading and I’ll talk to you in the next one. Pop on!

– LJ 🍀

UPDATE: In other news, more fabulous masterpieces were shared on Poptropica’s Instagram story. Keep them coming, creators! I’m loving the frequent engagement with the online community.

Creators, Creators' Blog Guest Posts, Fairy Tale Island

Interview with the Poptropica Creators: the creative process of making a game 🎤✏️

March 28, 2021April 3, 2021 Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, it’s Slanted Fish here with a behind-the-scenes look at the Poptropica Creators’ creative process! 👀✏️

Operating System: When technology meets talent, anything is possible.

About a month ago, I sent the Pop Creators several interview questions, and this week, the questions were answered! You can catch the full interview on the Creators’ Blog as well as below, along with some additional notes (in italics) here in the PHB edition:

Where do you get your ideas from?

We get a lot of ideas when we’re together talking about our favorite things. That inspires a lot of creative fun ideas. Pets came from the idea that almost everyone on the Poptropica Creators team [h]as pets and the types of pets varies from dogs to cats to rabbits and more.

We also get a lot of ideas from players. Poptropica players are always sharing super cool stuff that they want to see in the game. We get awesome fan mail and see people’s ideas on social media too.

(PHB’s note: We share ideas from the community here on the PHB as well — check out our Pop Petitions for things we want to see in the game!)

What does the process of making something on Poptropica look like from start to finish, whether it’s an item, island, or character?

We’ll use the new store we’re working on as an example! First, everyone on the team does research. We go through player feedback on what people have and haven’t liked about the Poptropica store over the years. We also look at other stores, including stores IRL. Then we start to concept what we want the store to be like. We have to come up with designs that will be easy to use both on your computer and on mobile.

After the sketches are done, some of the artists will start to design the actual scene with color and place items, so we get an idea of how big it needs to be. Once everyone feels like it has what it needs, it goes to the developers.

The developers are the ones who bring the whole thing to life. They code the entire experience and that’s the first time any of the Poptropica Creators can actually play what they’ve designed! We just did our first play-through of the new store and were psyched with how it’s come along.

Everything we make requires the whole team and takes a lot of time. It’s totally worth it though!

(PHB’s note: Check out these sneak peeks for the upcoming interior of the store! Also, it’s cool to hear about how different parts of the team work together to create the game’s designs.)

Can you share some snapshots of what you’re working on?

Here [are] some more sneak peeks [for] the new Fairy Tale Island!

(PHB’s note: Nice pics! We’ve also shared more sneak peeks of Fairy Tale Island on this blog. Stay tuned to the PHB for the latest news on this upcoming adventure! Also, thoughts on this new hands-on-hips pose?)

What kind of stories do you hope to tell?

We love unique stories with a fun twist. Elements of surprise are always super fun too. When we’re brainstorming new ideas or choosing winners for the Dream Island Contest, we’re looking for things that we think we would love to read as a book. If it would make a good book, then it would make a great island!

(PHB’s note: Interesting. We love a good book too, but a Poptropica island is not a book — wouldn’t it be cool to explore more on the affordances of Poptropica’s platform? Interactivity, non-linear storytelling, social interaction, and more are all possibilities with digital storytelling that you would not find with a book. Still, there are certain elements that make up a good story no matter the medium, and we always look forward to what stories will be told through Poptropica!)

How do you gather player feedback and how does it influence the game?

Players share their feedback in a lot of different places, from actual mail to videos online. There is always a lot of feedback and it ranges from super fun ideas to questions about why we’ve made changes to Poptropica. When we get a lot of the same feedback from different players it can definitely influence what we do. For example, there have been a lot of requests for more ways to customize your character now that New You is gone. We’re already incorporating that into the new features we’re working on.

(PHB’s note: Why is New You gone, anyway? BTW, if you have feedback for the Creators, you can send them through their submission form!)

What advice do you have for young creatives who want to work on a game like Poptropica one day?

If you’re passionate about making games, start learning no matter what age you are. One of the newest developers on the Poptropica Creators team started learning how to code when they were 12, and that was before there were so many amazing online courses! Always be open to learning new things and be willing to put in the hard work and dedication to become really good at it. Sometimes starting something new can feel hard, but with practice, anyone can become great!

That’s the end of the interview! Thank you, Poptropica Creators, for taking the time to answer these questions and give Poptropicans everywhere some insight into the game’s inner (and outer) workings. It’s hard work building this space to be quality fun, but well worth it! 💙

What are your thoughts on the Q&A? What questions do you have for the Pop Creators? Share them in the comments here, and/or on the original guest post on their blog, and they may be addressed in the future!

~🐠