Guest posts are blog posts that are written by Poptropicans who are not staff writers on the PHB team at the time of writing. Interested in contributing? Check out our “Write for the PHB” guide under the Contact tab up top.
Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Magic Kid. Enjoy!
Welcome back to ZOMBIES, ZOMBIES, ALWAYS ZOMBIES! First, I would like to thank you all for reading: THANK YOU FOR READING! If you didn’t read the last episode, I suggest that you go back and read it right here. Now, let’s continue this adventure!
(Mwah ha ha ha haa! They have no idea what’s coming!)
My brother behind me: You know, we can still read it even if you put your words in parentheses!
Oh.
…
*Contemplating life choices*
…
Well, enjoy!
Total Bunk: Front door’s locked up tight.
ZOMBIES, ZOMBIES, ALWAYS ZOMBIES!
A Zomberry Series
Episode Two: Stragglers
Clumsy Bird hears the noise, whips around, and hits the stick against something orange. A giant carrot? No, it was a carrot costume! And the actor in it shouts out in surprise and pain.
Jazzy Hawk
OW!
Clumsy Bird
Oh, sorry!
Jazzy Hawk
What’d you do that for?
Jazzy Hawk looks annoyed and rubs his bruised shoulder.
Clumsy Bird
I thought you were one of those zombies!
Jazzy Hawk
Uh, no. I’m a carrot.
Clumsy Bird
Oh, you don’t know!— there are real zombies roaming outside right now!
Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Silver Sword. Enjoy!
Olympus has Risen: We’ve always had our heads in the clouds.
White Cloud journeyed to Home Island after a long and tiring trip from Mythology Island. She walked up to her clubhouse door, ready to look at her favourite picture (and maybe take a nap) before journeying to another island for another quest. White Cloud entered her clubhouse and climbed to the top, where her bed was.
“Mythology is tiring,” she thought out loud. She sat down on the bed and looked up at her favourite picture, ready to take a nap.
But the picture looked different. Instead of a picture of White Cloud and her friend, Dizzy Thunder, playing on Fairy Tale Island, there was a picture of Amelia. The picture looked like Amelia was in a jungle, in a purple puddle on a tree, and sinking into the puddle! White Cloud could tell that the picture (or perhaps Amelia) was trying to tell her something.
“I need to help Amelia, but where in Poptropica is she?”said White Cloud. Then it came to her. There was only one place Amelia could be… V1 Island! But where could it be? White Cloud checked all her maps for V1 Island, but couldn’t find it.
“Even though I don’t know where it is yet, I should probably pack. V1 island is forbidden, after all.” White Cloud packed everything she thought she would need for a trip to a dangerous and forbidden place like V1 Island. She sat back down on her bed and checked all her maps again, but she still couldn’t find the island!
“Ugh! I will never find V1 island on my own.” White Cloud looked at the picture again. This time, the picture started glowing! White Cloud watched in horror as the picture started pulling her inside — then she started to hear Amelia’s cry for help…
To be continued
Thanks, bye!
-Silver Sword ⚔️
Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Silver Sword. If you did, you might also enjoy other fanfictions we’ve shared.
The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. Interested in writing for the PHB? We’d love to hear from you!
Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Magic Kid. Enjoy!
Hello, all readers! It’s Magic Kid here today!
Welcome one and all to the beginning of “ZOMBIES, ZOMBIES, ALWAYS ZOMBIES!” — a story of zombies, survival, Poptropica, and — we can’t forget this — blueberries!
I’m really excited to get this fanfiction started, and hopefully you’re excited to read it. The first episode is kind of an introduction to the story (and some questions may get answered later, so don’t fuss about it). Thank you all so much, and enjoy!
Silver Screen: It’s one of our favorite famous monsters of filmland.
ZOMBIES, ZOMBIES, ALWAYS ZOMBIES!
A Zomberry Series
Episode One: The Play That Was Never Performed
The curtain to the stage is closed. The Audience gathers around in the theater’s seats, making a hum of chatter like buzzing bees.
They all gather and by the time that nearly everyone is sitting and comfortable, perhaps munching on popcorn, or checking their watches, they all begin to wonder why the play hasn’t started yet, and the hum of excited voices becomes bugged and worried.
A family of three sits at the front of the audience, feeling the same anticipation as everyone else.
Audience Dad
Why aren’t they starting already? They’re more than ten minutes late!
Audience Mom
Shush dear, I’m sure it’s all just a big misunderstanding, they can’t be much longer.
A little boy sitting next to them is fidgeting from sitting still for so long.
Audience Little Boy
Mommy, when’s the play going to start? I’m bored!
Audience Mom
Have some popcorn or some of this smoothie, they have to start soon.
The little boy munches on the buttery popcorn, and then just decides to devour it all.
The buzzing noise intensifies as people begin to get more concerned or annoyed.
But the stage continued to have the dark velvet curtains closed. Just as everyone thinks that it won’t happen, that the play was canceled, and everyone begins to leave, grumbling all the way…
The lights darken smoothly.
The talking becomes a hush as everyone hurries back to their seats, excited.
A grand voice issues from the unseen speakers, echoing impressively throughout the theater.
Play Narrator (Jazzy Hawk)
Welcome one and welcome all! Young and old, welcome! Welcome to 24 Carrot Theater’s production of The Carrot-Apocalypse! We must thank the mayor of this town for remodeling this room so we can give you live performances. We’ve brought you actors and actresses from all across Poptropica for you to enjoy tonight!
The Play Narrator continues to talk, to stall, because backstage, where his magnified voice is muffled, a disaster is going on.
Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Comical Dragon. Enjoy!
Hi all! My name is Comical Dragon. I’m a longtime Poptropica player and PHB reader. I’m not going to say how old I am, but I am old enough to remember the Flash days of Poptropica, when new islands and ideas were abundant, and each one left me feeling satisfied.
To me, the beauty of Poptropica and its islands was their creativity.
Remember when the friends page used to look like this?
I’m the kind of person that likes the simple things in life. Even as I aged out of Poptropica’s target demographic (originally 6–15 years old), I still revisited the website from time to time, and up until their removal, I would replay some of my favorite islands over and over again. All this to say, Poptropica was, and is, a game that I’ve held close to my heart. For that reason, it pains me to say that I’m deeply disappointed in where the game has gone in recent years.
A bit of background, in case you’re unfamiliar with Pop lore: The game was released in 2007, created by Jeff Kinney (more popularly known as the author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series). Through 2007-2015, the game grew to have over 75 million registered users. The original publishers were Pearson Education, but the site was sold to Sandbox Networks in 2015. As it often happens with company acquisitions, teams were restructured, with evidence of some longtime Pop Creators leaving against their wishes. This is the point where I begin my criticisms.
Secret Lair: This evil HQ is under construction.
Looking at this list of island releases by year, taken from the Poptropica Fandom Wiki, you can see that starting in 2015, there are fewer islands released per year, dwindling down to just one last year in 2022.
Also see the PHB’s Island Guides for info on all the islands.
In my personal opinion, the islands from 2015 onwards lack the creativity and depth of the islands before them. My playthroughs of the most recent ones, the three contest-winning Dream Islands (Fairy Tale, Goofball, and Jade Scarab) left me deeply disappointed. The concepts of these islands are so rich and have so much potential! Just check out the inside looks with the player designers of Jade Scarab and Goofball Island. But it felt to me as though the team didn’t want to play with the ideas they were offered from players.
It took me no more than 15 minutes to play through each one — granted, I am an older player. Still, there was not much to explore in the environments of these three islands, barely any NPCs to interact with, and the main quests were extremely simple. They essentially held your hand while going through objectives, and there wasn’t much of a story element that I had enjoyed with previous islands.
The new islands felt rather dry.
Because I don’t want to be overly negative, I will mention that some newer features of Poptropica are quite nice, like the Home Island and the player’s clubhouse, allowing players to make their own space in-game.
Of course, I can’t talk about the latest islands without talking about Flash. When Adobe Flash was discontinued in 2020, many of Poptropica’s islands were rendered unplayable. The Creators kept promising that old islands were being brought over to a new format, but the selection of islands has disappointed fans. Poptropica went from a bustling 51+ islands to 17, with some of them being locked behind a paywall, either of membership or the paid Steam bundle.
Deplane: It’s going down for real.
I will admit that transitioning the amount of content that Poptropica had does take time and hard work. I won’t fault the Creators for that. However, I think that rather than releasing new islands that don’t have the same appeal as old islands, and continually revamping the Home Island, the Creators need to bring back the old islands — as they were originally. They’ve remastered classic islands in the past, and the results haven’t been well received (see the watered-down Mythology, and Zomberry on Roblox).
Moving on from the islands, I’d also like to touch on the membership paywalls. Many original costumes, and even some of the re-released islands, are for members only. I understand the need for revenue since the website doesn’t seem to be getting as much traffic these days, but this has a huge impact for players. The costumes available to all are flat — they’re everyday clothes that you or I might wear. And the Costumizer tool, which allowed players to put together creative looks inspired by the characters they met across the islands, is also gone!
Some of my outfits from over the years.
Poptropica doesn’t offer the same freedom to players anymore — we can’t explore islands nor customize our characters to be as fantastical as we want. A huge part of what drew me to the website was the creativity, and the escapism of it all. It just isn’t there anymore.
My suggestions to the Pop Creators:
Spend more time rebuilding, and gradually releasing old islands! While adding to the Home Island and little side quests are great, they’re really not what Poptropica is all about.
Let players make their own choices, and have deeper gameplay! Kids are so much smarter than we give them credit for, especially when they’re engaged — simply look towards the old islands.
Give players more creative control over their characters, and make more whimsical and fun costumes and add-ons available to people who don’t have memberships.
Shoppe Talk: What’s olde is new.
Poptropica in its prime was releasing quality islands and drawing millions of players, old and young alike. What happened? Let’s bring back the old Poptropica that so many people cherished.
Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Comical Dragon. If you did, you might also enjoy our various Pop Petition posts.
The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. Interested in writing for the PHB? We’d love to hear from you!
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