It’s Lucky Joker here and if you’ve been following the Poptropica Creators’ Blog lately, then you know a new series has been introduced called “Outfit of the Week.”
You might also have noticed some discrepancies between the image and the actual descriptions on how to get the costume. We poked fun at this in our April Fools prank when contradictions appeared last week, but the inaccuracies have only continued. In this week’s Mermaid costume, again in contradiction to the image itself, the avatar’s skin is anything but blue, and there is no fin to be seen. See for yourself:
“So the writer made a mistake—cut ’em some slack!”
Well, considering it’s not the first time, we’re worried that the bad blogging will be a pattern. Take a look at the inconsistencies from last week’s Hippie Hitchhiker outfit:
As you can see, there are a lot of issues here, starting with the lack of a beanie or dreadlocks. On top of that, they didn’t even bother to give that post a title.
We know that Captain Crawfish, who signs off most posts on the Creators’ Blog, used to be the alias of Mitch Krpata, one of several Poptropica staff who was recently let go. Crawfish is still signing off these posts, so it seems likely someone else has taken over his alias to resume the blogging.
But still, it’s not unreasonable for us to expect them to write something better than the short and irrelevant posts we’ve been getting—that’s if we get anything at all.
We do appreciate that the Creators are giving us some content between island releases, but we’d appreciate a little more effort in their communications. In fact, while they’ve been silent on the blog for three months, then writing about islands that came out more than two years ago (which we also poked fun at), they’ve made zero mention on the blog of their most recent Worlds island, Greek Sea Odyssey. The lack of proper attention in recent posts is concerning and even a little saddening.
On the topic of Outfit of the Week ideas, here at the PHB we’ve got 100+ creative outfits over on our Costumes page with contributions from many Poptropicans over the years. We can guarantee that, for the most part, the descriptions there are pretty accurate.
What are your thoughts on the Creators’ communications lately? Share them in the comments below. Thanks for reading, as always! Talk to you in the next one.
Hiya, Silver Wolf here with some social media news and special art!
To start with, Nate Greenwall, the inventor of Dr. Hare who was recently let go from Poptropica, tweeted some really cool sneak peeks of old sketches! These drawings include costumes, buildings, and diagrams of islands.
The first photo contains many of the costumes we know and love today (including Captain Crawfish’s costume itself), but the second photo is where it gets more interesting. Most of the drawings are of scenes we have already seen from Shark Tooth, but there is one piece of paper that is cut off, describing an unknown island. It appears to end with an R, and there is a sketch labeled “GHOST SHIP” that has jellyfish obstacles, requiring you to talk to ghosts to get a combination for a chest. It looks less fleshed out than the other sketches, so it’s likely that it was never planned to be released.
The items in the third photo are also interesting, especially since you can see a small portion of what looks like an early version of the Flying Squid tribe room. There are also some sketches of the cheese curd factory on Mocktropica, including an odd drawing of a machine twisting a cow to get milk.
In other news, recently on Instagram, user karin2_arts asked under one of Poptropica’s photographs (@poptropicacreators) whether there will be any more updates coming to Poptropica Original. And somewhat surprisingly, they said yes!
So what could these updates include? Well, I have a feeling there won’t be a new island; after all, Poptropica Worlds will likely have all of the Original’s islands eventually, so there wouldn’t really be a point. Some more plausible updates could be new costumes, updates to Home Island, or possibly even a new mini-quest if we’re being ambitious. But who knows? Maybe the Creators will surprise us again!
Speaking of Creators, the official Poptropica Twitter (@Poptropica) has unfollowed hundredsof people, narrowing it down to just 19 accounts (the PHB’s Twitter is one of the few not unfollowed). One of the people unfollowed includes Jessica, also known as Skinny Moon, the previous social media manager. She tweeted:
And they pretty much unfollowed everyone. Part of being on social media is being SOCIAL and not elitist. Follow your fans back @Poptropica. #notcool
She’s not wrong. After all, she brought the community together and made people excited for updates; Poptropica should value her opinion. Elitism creates isolation, and isolation creates unhappiness. Jessica also mentioned that this new social media direction could be because of employee changes:
I don’t know who’s running the social media, now that most of the company is gone. But it stinks seeing everything get dismantled. 😞
We’ve known that some senior Poptropica employees have recently been let go, but she says “most of the company is gone.” What does this mean for Poptropica’s future? How will updates be done in a timely manner with few employees? Right now, the future of Poptropica is looking pretty grim…
What do you think of the sketches? Or the promise of updates coming to Poptropica Original worked on by unfamiliar employees? Leave your thoughts below!
Captain Crawfish is back with a new video walkthrough for the newest island release, Greek Sea Odyssey—complete with sass and sarcasm!
We’ve also got a written Greek Sea Odyssey guide here on the PHB, and it’s got more than just walkthroughs—we even have trivia and museum info.
But back to that video… well, we’ve got some news. If you watch all the way to the end, at around the 15:55 mark, Captain Crawfish (who we know is voiced by Mitch Krpata) makes an unusual closing statement that’s rather sentimental:
Friends, Poptropicans — I’m Captain Crawfish. It has been the privilege of my life to bring you Poptropica over the last ten years. I love you!
Although it’s very subtle here, other sources show us that the Captain, aka Mitch Krpata, has parted ways with Poptropica, after ten years of service. Shocked? So are we.
Mitch Krpata, in case you’re not familiar, is a senior story developer and narrative designer for Poptropica, and author of three of the Poptropica graphic novels (The Lost Expedition, The Secret Society, and The End of Time).
The same day the Greek Sea Odyssey video came out, Krpata tweeted:
I always imagined that if I were unemployed I would have the opportunity and the inspiration to follow my dreams. I guess now I get to find out!
He’s also updated his LinkedIn page to show that he no longer works for StoryArc Media, Poptropica’s parent company:
And he’s not the only one.
Nate Greenwall, who went under the alias Shark Guy (formerly Shark Boy), and was the inventor of beloved Poptropica icon Dr. Hare, also put out this tweet about working for Poptropica, in past tense:
I’m grateful for the chance I had to work on Poptropica, and make it become an important part of many kids’ lives. Also Dr. Hare will always be one of my favorite creations. It has been an epic adventure, now on to the next chapter! #poptropica#drharepic.twitter.com/7fTDDVKd0e
Greenwall also had a few tips to share about his experience doing game design for a younger audience (or any age, really):
As the UX/UI Designer on #Poptropica, here are just a few things I learned designing for a younger audience (or any age): •Cut down on text •#Prototype and test early •Add in delight and "ah ha!" moments •If the experience isn't fun for you, your audience will likely hate it. https://t.co/xn9guu3MjK
And we know of one more who’s gone: Lance Fry, a senior artist at Poptropica. You may be familiar with some of the work he’s done, featured here in this Pop Portfolio.
We also haven’t heard from Creators Dave and Stephaniein a while, either, suggesting that they may not be around either—though there isn’t any solid evidence on this yet.
The PHB reached out to Krpata for comment, and he confirmed that he and several others were let go this week. He also adds: “I’m so proud of the work we did and I can’t tell you how much your support mattered. Whatever Poptropica’s future, I’ll always be proud to have been a part of it.”
And Greenwall gave the PHB a shout-out:
Thank you PHB for the amazing years of support! I always loved reading your thoughts, feedback, and Poptropica stories. 👍
One thing to consider is the dwindling popularity of the game. It’s no secret Poptropica isn’t as popular as it once was. Krpata even stated this himself in an interview on The Oddball Show, which we covered here on the PHB.
As far as numbers go, Mitch reports that there are well over 500 million avatars created, and over 100 million players. However, he also says the game is “definitely not as cool now as it was before.” If you go to a school now and ask, “who knows Poptropica?” you might get about a dozen or so hands raised. But at the peak of Poptropica’s popularity, in 2010, every kid would be raising their hand – it was, for that while, the biggest site in the world for kids.
When companies become less popular, there is less of a need for a large number of employees to work for them, since the demand to produce content isn’t as high. This means that they’ll have to let some employees go. Poptropica is no exception.
This leads us to an even bigger question: What does this say about how Poptropica is doing financially?
When a company lets employees go, it usually indicates that they cannot afford to keep them around. It’s especially telling that these guys—Krpata, Greenwall, and Fry—all had senior positions, years of experience (a whole decade, even), and did not seem to want to be let go (the job searching indicates that it wasn’t like they had planned to move on elsewhere). We can’t confirm financial motivations, but we can speculate…
The fact that StoryArc Media chose to drop some of their most valuable team members (as opposed to those less experienced, if there were any) is pretty alarming. It could be that they had to make budget cuts because they couldn’t pay their best workers the salaries they deserved, or perhaps they had a falling out with the higher-ups that we don’t know about. Whatever the case may be, we’re sorry to see them go.
Update: Mitch Krpata published a blog post on his website about his current unemployment that offers some more insight into the incident, saying:
On Monday, I was informed that my position was being eliminated. Here I am.
Hey Poptropicans—this is a guest post by Tyler Naimoli, an aspiring children’s book author and current illustration/journalism and design college student. The post originally appeared on his blog as The Diary of a Wimpy Fall, and How It Can Be Stopped!, and a slightly condensed version focusing more on the Poptropica aspects of his post are shared below. Enjoy!
In his opinion piece, Tyler begins by sharing about how much he loved Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid books as a kid. You can read more in the original, but we’ll pick up from here…
I read the online version of the books on Funbrain.com that predated the original publication, while also clicking on the site’s shortcut to play a fantastic virtual world named Poptropica…
Yes, to a lot of you, that’s a thing.
Heard of it? Brings back memories?
I will never forget the day I learned on the Diary of a Wimpy Kid website that Jeff Kinney also developed Poptropica as well. After several years of playing the game I loved (it even inspired me to make my own virtual world), the discovery of my role model having made it was almost magical to me.
I will never forget the initial announcement of a Diary of a Wimpy Kid film adaptation, and my countdown to the film and its sequels (and the curious decision to title the third film as the fourth book). I will never forget the initial announcement of the Parade balloon, and host Al Roker discussing in awe the achievements of the Boy Who Made Wimps Cool for the first time. I will never forget the day Jeff Kinney came to my local Barnes and Noble for a book singing of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul years later, where I (failingly) suggested to intern for him (which I didn’t really mind).
What, you thought I was kidding?
But then came the (soft) reboot to the films, adapting that very same book Kinney signed for me. Knowing how often Kinney was asked in interviews to continue the films, and the decent quality of the previous films up to that point, I was confident that my role model would do it again—deliver a great film.
And then he didn’t.
At this point, Tyler comments on his disappointment of the later developments of the Wimpy Kid series, citing a critical fanbase, the casting of the new Rodrick, and cheap overuse of bathroom humor in “The Long Haul” (film). Picking up again…
A 20% rating on Rotten Tomatoes later, and I found myself trying to answer what I feared would end up becoming one of life’s age-old questions: what the heck happened? I didn’t even end up seeing the movie (which greatly shocked my parents, and I told them everything I’m telling you now). No, I thought to myself that I was actually doing a favor to Kinney in not seeing this film. I couldn’t support this disservice to the original work and what made this franchise so great.
I did read the reviews and the plot, and that’s all I will ever need. Before I continue, I shall quote some insightful words from the Poptropica Help Blog, taken from an interview with Poptropica CreatorMitch Krpata, which I will go back to later:
Mitch contends that there are many challenges to writing children’s media, as well as joys that make it easier. Although he’s writing for a child audience, he doesn’t feel like he’s “writing down” to them, affirming that kids are earnest and open to big ideas.
Based on what I read about the movie, it’s pretty clear Kinney forgot these most important words when it comes to children’s entertainment: that there is more to a story than just the visuals and the humor. There’s the story and the heart, the care that is being put into the product and letting the fans know that this is ultimately what you are doing this for, for them.
To me, nothing scares me more than writing a story that has even the least bit of a questionable plot point, let alone a story that is downright bad, and this is why I now love Krpata (I already quite liked him before). Dare I bring it back up again, but how could you make Susan Heffley such an unlikeable mother? How could you make Rodrick’s lack of intelligence the only aspect of his character? How could you make so many references to YouTube, Snapchat and memes for no other purpose than to appear “relevant” to today’s generation, when children are already aware of all that?
How could you inject the film with more of something as cheap as bathroom humor than anything else (and yes, the books do have this, but nowhere near the level seen in this movie) when Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, a film adaptation of a book series that has done it so much better, was set to come out the next month??? I’ll say it once, I don’t have to say it a million times: unless you’re Dav Pilkey, don’t try bathroom humor. Just… don’t. It’s the single biggest writing “technique” that is made to disservice children’s entertainment.
Everyone loved it, by the way.
Then, Tyler goes on to talk about how Jeff Kinney has remained quiet about the future of Wimpy Kid films, his personal disappointment with the later books, and the lack of acknowledgement for Wimpy Kid’s 10th birthday at the past Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade when the Wimpy Kid balloon took off. Picking up again…
Like I said earlier, I found myself trying to answer what I feared would end up becoming one of life’s age-old questions: what’s going on? But after much investigation, I finally have the answer.
So…what is going on?
Too Much Wimp, Too Little Pop.
It’s increasingly looking quite obvious what’s going on here. Now that I’ve discussed the Diary of a Wimpy Kid side of things, it’s time that I talk about the other intellectual property Kinney is famously (or is he?) known for: Poptropica.
It’s no secret that Kinney has devoted more of his time to Diary of a Wimpy Kid than Poptropica for much of the game’s history, though it’s also no secret that he has shown in the past how to balance things out. I remember when I was a kid, Poptropica was practically producing islands every month.
Enter Poptropica Worlds, a successor to the original game in the franchise’s effort to stay afloat with changing times, and you have a completely new story. Despite the game being around for quite some time (two-thirds of a year now), as of this writing the only islands are Crisis Caverns and a remastered 24 Carrot.
Now, imagine three new likely-not-very-good Wimpy Kid books also released by then, and a possible sequel film adaptation of The Getaway book freshly minted on DVD, and the future looks grim for Kinney’s empire.
Yet the solution to stop this “Diary of a Wimpy Fall” is easy, because Mitch Krpata already suggested the answer and possibly didn’t even know it. Quoting from the interview coverage from the Poptropica Help Blog again:
The hosts ask if there are any Star Wars references in the Poptropica books, to which Mitch points to Galactic Hot Dogs, where Max Brallier “tries to write Star Wars for kids.” GHD is also owned by StoryArc Media, whose biggest mistake, he says, is probably letting Jeff Kinney keep the rights to Wimpy Kid, which is worth far more than the entire company now.
Ta–da.
In case you don’t know, Poptropica is, as of this writing, owned by a company called StoryArc Media, which itself is affiliated with a company called Sandbox Networks. Sandbox acquired the rights to StoryArc in 2015, which at the time was called the Family Education Network under Pearson PLC. But try to digest this next statement from the PHB:
Jeff retained the rights to Wimpy Kid and became wealthy overnight, but continued his day job on Poptropica, which Mitch says is more than you’d expect for someone who’d built this empire. Poptropica and Wimpy Kid are both very important to him, but at this point, he’s finally much more focused on Wimpy Kid than Poptropica.
Hmm.
And then there’s this:
As far as numbers go, Mitch reports that there are well over 500 million avatars created, and over 100 million players. However, he also says the game is “definitely not as cool now as it was before.” If you go to a school now and ask, “who knows Poptropica?” you might get about a dozen or so hands raised. But at the peak of Poptropica’s popularity, in 2010, every kid would be raising their hand – it was, for that while, the biggest site in the world for kids.
But wait, what about this?
However, he says, kids are fickle, and they will move on to the next thing. There have been so many competing games in the past ten years, so the Poptropica team used to worry about competing with Neopets, then Club Penguin, and now Animal Jam. Still, if you keep giving them something to come back to, they might stick around.
You don’t say.
It’s pretty clear what’s happening: Jeff Kinney is focusing too much on Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and not enough on Poptropica. And in doing so, he is oversaturating the Wimpy Kid brand to the point of exhaustion, and Poptropica isn’t getting enough of his love. Why make something of a reboot to the previous Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies that no one wanted and ultimately failed to deliver, when you could make a Poptropica movie???
Now, I would like to discuss other children’s book authors. Lincoln Peirce, writer of the Big Nate comic strip, was pretty intent on ending the books after the eighth book, even though it was the property’s adaptation into a Poptropica island that got the strip popular enough to become a book series in the first place.
Mitch Krpata himself ended the fantastic Poptropica graphic novels (yes, Kinney didn’t write them, I know) after the fourth. Heck, even Beverly Clearly didn’t want Ramona Quimby to become a teenager, famously stating her fear of the teenage years in a 1995 interview: “I think writers need to know when to retire.” And note how I started seeing the decline in Diary of a Wimpy Kid’s quality at the 11th book, when Kinney started recycling book cover colors.
Hmmmmmmm.
Not the end of my tears, though!
I’m not saying that Kinney should quit, though. What I am saying is that Kinney should take a break. I find it intriguing that after all these years, he is still able to put these books out yearly exactly to the first Tuesday of November and keep them exactly at 224 pages, but now I’m questioning exactly how subconscious of a decision this has become on his part. (Editor’s note: The exactness of the pattern is likely planned by the publishers, but he could still have made room for creativity within those pages.) Is this, among other things, the reasons for the sudden lack of a grasp to his storytelling?
But the best part about this whole situation is this: unlike other authors who could end up in this predicament, Kinney doesn’t have to take a break from his career entirely. What makes him notably stand out from other children’s book authors is that he created another piece of intellectual property in the Poptropica franchise, which is literally crying out to him to come back!
While working on Poptropica, Kinney can sort things out with himself on Diary of a Wimpy Kid. While on his break, he can try to figure out what is going on with the decline in quality and try to fix it, so that when he does go back to Diary of a Wimpy Kid, he becomes the Jeff Kinney that we all know and love again, and in doing so, both Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Poptropica could become great again.
I already have something of a solution, and I’m not alone on this: an animated Diary of a Wimpy Kid film in the style of The Peanuts Movie and Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. Both films are not only highly enjoyable, but the differences between the animation style and the illustrations of the source material of both films allowed animations of the original illustrations to be implemented. This would allow this hypothetical Wimpy Kid film to still creatively use Kinney’s illustrations in the same way the live-action films did.
Tyler then talks a little bit about which of the Wimpy Kid books he thinks should be adapted into an animated film, and compares the situation with other children’s writers choosing not to make their works into live-action films. Picking up again…
I don’t say any of this because the sudden decline in the quality of Kinney’s work has suddenly given me an undying urge to hate him; I say this out of my love for him. Jeff Kinney was a major influence on my decision to become a children’s book author, and I only wish the best for him. His relatability to the reality of our lives has impacted so many people, including myself, and I wish to see that continue for many years to come.
And perhaps it’s because I’m dying to see a Poptropica movie (I’m even writing a script, which will be for another post), but Krpata did say this toward the end of that Poptropica Help Blog post:
He’s asked if there is a movie on the way, and replies with, “I hope so! We still have a dream to get an animated series on the way, so we’ll see what happens.”
Get it going, Kinney. 😉
Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Tyler Naimoli! If you did, be sure to check out his website, Naimoli Children’s Books Blog, where he discusses children’s media and shares his own work in that area.
The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. You can find some tips and guidelines on our Write for the PHB page. We also encourage sharing blog posts on the PHC.
Attentive readers of the official Poptropica Creators’ Blog may have noticed something amiss lately: the newest posts are no longer being signed by Skinny Moon, the resident Poptropica social media manager of the past year and a half. In fact, they don’t have sign-offs at all. Take a look:
Who’s the new guy, and why doesn’t he put his URLs into hyperlinked key words?
Based on the game screenshots in this month’s Creators’ Blog posts, what we can tell is that whoever is posting identifies as a light-skinned, yellow-haired male character. However, he has yet to formally introduce himself. So, the question remains: who dis?
Skinny Moon’s last Creators’ Blog post was on June 28, in which she posted a picture titled #WhereIsTheHare? Stay tuned to find out! Well, it’s not clear when we will ever find out… and since then, Mr. New Blogger has made three posts, starting from July 10. Still, we have no idea who’s taken over (yet).
So, #WhereIsSkinnyMoon? Well, Skinny Moon is evidently no longer managing Poptropica’s social media. She did contact the PHB on her last week, in June, to inform us of her departure and changes with “new social media people” (implying more than one, though perhaps one is on the blog while others are on other channels). But she asked us to keep the information on the down-low until she’d made an official announcement.
However, as it has been three weeks and three blog posts without her since then, as well as a number of social media posts on their other channels made by the new people/person, we may as well call the conspicuous situation to light – with apologies to Skinny Moon for being the ones to break the news first. She says she’s “off to new adventures,” but hopes to “work with Poptropica again in the fall in some capacity.”
If you want to keep up with Skinny Moon, you can follow her on Twitter @PopGirlJess.
As for the new social media people – we hope you’ll introduce yourselves soon and get involved in the fan community, continuing Skinny Moon’s efforts with commenting on fan blogs, popping into Discord chat servers, and more!
What advice do you have for the new Poptropica social media people? Last words for Skinny Moon? Share your thoughts in the comments!
🏝 Poptropica Help Blog 🗺 