Category: Guest Posts

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.

Guest Posts, PopTROPEica

Pop-TROPE-ica: 10 Times We Time Travel ⏱

Slanted Fish

This is a guest post by Silver Shell. Enjoy!

What’s up, Poptropicans? Silver Shell here. I’m back to show you my latest Pop-TROPE-ica post, a series about trends in the game.

This time, we’re talking about how some Poptropica islands send you through time and space. Let’s get into it!

10. Early Poptropica

This island goes way back — and not just in the sense that it’s the first Poptropica island ever. The 8-bit characters are definitely old-timey, and reflect the pilgrims who settled in what became America. While only one half of the island is designed like this, the Pop Art museum also has you meet artists from the past, such as da Vinci and van Gogh.

9. Red Dragon

Remember this one? This island is one of my favorites. It’s based off of Mary Pope Osborne’s Magic Tree House series, and has you go back in time to the Edo period of Japan with Jack and Annie. However, instead of being set in the past from beginning to end like Early Poptropica, you first arrive in the present before the tree house sends you to Old Japan a little later.

8. Mystery Train

Not only is this island full of mystery, it also puts you way back in time–to 1893, specifically–and has historical figures around every corner. From Nikola Tesla to Susan B. Anthony to President Cleveland, this island is definitely an island set a long time ago.

7. Astro-Knights

This one’s a good example. It shows both time travel to the past, what with the medieval knights and all that, and futuristic technology. Though it was a good mix of the two, I think it was set more in the past, just with items of the future.

6. Super Power

This one may be just me, but doesn’t it kind of seem like Super Power is set in the future? Think about it. Radioactive meteorites giving regular criminals superhuman powers, anti-power handcuffs, and everything else. I guess it’s more sci-fi than anything, but don’t you think it could also be futuristic? I mean, who knows what could be invented in the near future? Anyway, it seems possible that it’s in the future.

5. Mythology (or Mythology – Classic Version)

Yes, Mythology Island! Puts you back in time to when the gods walked among mortals, as the legends would have it. From the design of the buildings to the way people are dressed, you can see this island is set back in Ancient Greece. 

4. Shrink Ray

Shrink Ray, the island where you get shrunk by an evil teacher! While I suppose it doesn’t really seem like time-travel since it looks like a modern town with modern stuff, it gives me a sense of the future. Shrink ray guns have been talked about since forever, and the fact that it exists here makes it seem like the island is set in the near future, perhaps.

3. S.O.S.

Being modeled after the fall of the Titanic, when I played this one it kind of seemed like we were had gone back in time to experience this bit of history. While it could have been in the present but just similar to something from the past, the Titanic connection makes me think S.O.S. should be considered an island with time travel.

2. Cryptids

People have been obsessed with finding cryptids since forever, but the ones we spot on this island have yet to be confirmed in our IRL timeline. Actually finding them here hints at what could happen in the future. I guess this one’s kind of a long shot, but it’s still remotely related to time travel in my opinion. It’s not just me, is it?

1. Time Tangled

Of course this one! Visiting eleven different time periods from the past! That’s a time travel island if you ask me. I bet everyone expected this one would come up on this list. Come on, this island is the most related to time travel ever to appear on the map.

So, how do you like it? Ten whole islands that take you back in time. That’s a Poptropica trend for sure. Maybe the next Dream Island, Secret of the Jade Scarab, will also have time travel. We’ll see. Until next time!

Pop Nonstop,
Silver Shell 🥈🐚

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Silver Shell. If you did, you might also like her other posts, such as this Pop Petition: Stop replacing good features.

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!

Guest Posts, Pop-over

Pop-over: Percy Jackson 🔱

Slanted Fish

This is a guest post by Silver Shell. Enjoy!

Hello, Poptropicans! It’s Silver Shell again.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a big fan of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, so I decided to make a Pop-over (Poptropica crossover) of the three main characters: Percy, Annabeth, and Grover. They’ll be based on how they look in the movies, not the books.

First, here’s Percy Jackson. Get the hair, shirt, and pants from New You (Home Island on the Poptropica app), use any type of PopGum for the mouth, and don the sword, belt, and collared armor top from the Templar Knight costume. (Try glitching for specific parts!)

Next is Annabeth Chase. For her top, you can use the Costumizer on the lady eating on top of the convention center in PoptropiCon: Ep. 1. Snag the bow and quiver from the Robin Hood costume, the pants from the Pumpkin Smash costume, and hair from the Winter Girl 3 along with bangs from the Prom Queen costume.

Last but not least, here’s Grover Underwood. Get his horns and hair from the satyr in Mythology Island, jacket from the Fall Fashion 2 costume, shirt from the Novice Adventurer Outfit (from the Home Island quest), and pants from New You (on the app).

And that’s that! Hope you liked my Pop-over on Percy Jackson.

Pop Nonstop,
Silver Shell 🥈🐚

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Silver Shell. If you did, you might also like her other posts, such as this Pop Petition: Stop replacing good features.

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!

Guest Posts, Pop Petitions

Pop Petition: Stop replacing good features

Slanted Fish

This is a guest post by Silver Shell. Enjoy!

Hey Poptropicans! Today I’ll be talking to you about how Poptropica should first work on what we players specifically ask for, before jumping onto something else that they only think we might like.

Granted, this one’s a little obvious, but I feel like someone needs to bring it up. Poptropica often makes a ton of new features nowadays, and I feel like most of it is really unnecessary. Specifically, Poptropica seemingly enjoys replacing and changing perfectly good features. I’ll be addressing some of them here.

Not only are most of the new features pretty annoying and inconvenient in my opinion, they also bring up more glitches than the original version had. This is bad for both the players and the creators, since they have to spend even more resources on fixing the glitches, when they could have avoided all this by simply leaving the feature the way it had been. Here are some examples:

A Buggy New Inventory

  • New and current inventory
  • Previous inventory

This one has been brought up a lot. For a long time, Poptropica’s inventory screen has looked similar to the above picture to the right (though the categorization of items with tabs came much later). Earlier this year, it was changed to the one on the left. The original had very few bugs, and there was hardly anything wrong with it, especially once tabs were introduced to help sort through tons of items.

However, once it was changed to the character screen, even more bugs came up. People have been complaining about bugs on the character screen for a long time, but few are fixed. My theory is that the creators hear these complaints, but have already invested so much on changing the inventory setup that they are lacking the resources to fix it.

Loss of the Charming Crate Menu

  • New and current menu
  • Previous menu with crate opening up

Remember the crate menu? You’d click on the box in the top corner to open up all the menu options. I know I definitely loved the crate. It was subtle and charming, and it was satisfying to watch your items just spill out across your screen. For another thing, it didn’t take up a lot of space like the new one does.

But when it was changed earlier this year, it was a boring modern 3-lines button. Not very fun at all! Not to mention how much space it takes up when all nine blocks are set out on the screen. I just think there was no real reason to change it. And it’s not like we couldn’t have the original in Haxe, since it had been there in Haxe’s earliest stages. Why did the creators feel the need to change this?

Home Island Refreshed, Again

Some people like this new Home Island, but I have to say, I enjoyed the old one much better. I don’t see any reason in changing it — the creators should stop working on new Home Islands for a change and start working on classic island returns! They’re what we really want.

Speaking of new visuals, I’m also not a big fan of the new animation of characters, but that’s getting off-topica.

With all that in mind, this is my message to the creators: Stop replacing good features, and work on what we players specifically ask for! 

The game wouldn’t be much without the players, but in its current state, it barely resembles the Poptropica I used to play. Creators, if you listen to our petitions for old stuff, Poptropica will really improve! So please, stop changing what is fine the way it is, and start working on what we really want — specifically, island adventures.

That’s all for this post. Thanks so much for reading about my ideas for what Poptropica should really focus on!

Pop Nonstop,
Silver Shell 🥈🐚

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Silver Shell. If you did, you might also like other posts of hers, such as this Pop 5 list of Most Missed Old Islands.

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!

Guest Posts, Pop-over

Pop-over: Ghost Rider

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Giant Dragon. Enjoy!

Hello Poptropicans, and happy belated Halloween!

Did you enjoy my “Ghost Rider” costume in the PHB’s Halloween Costume Contest? It won an honorable mention! For this post, I’m going to share how you can put this outfit together. Let us “pop” into it.

  • “Ghost Rider” by Giant Dragon
  • Ghost Rider (pic: EpicGames)

For those who don’t know, the Ghost Rider is a Marvel comic book superhero also adapted into movies. Wikipedia’s description of the character is “a human who can transform into a skeletal superhuman wreathed in ethereal flame and given supernatural powers.”

Now, putting the costume together is as easy as nibbling cheese! Here are the items you will need (the numbers are their codes in Card Collector, a glitching tool for getting all sorts of stuff):

  • Rock Star outfit (3006)
  • Torch Power (3050)
  • Skeleton Power or any outfit or ASG with a skull on it (3006)
  • Rumplestiltskin outfit (if you don’t have the outfit, since it’s members-only, use the ASG Machine)

Before you start, remove any handheld item or anything else (including backpack and hair wigs). This is how you’ll assemble the outfit:

  1. Use the Skeleton Power and remove the ribs from it.
  2. Put on the Rumplestiltskin shirt.
  3. Activate Torch Power!
  • Step 1
  • Step 2
  • Step 3

Add whatever pants you like, and there you go. Doesn’t it look completely spooky?

Keep your eyes popped for my future posts! Dragon out.

~ 🐉 Giant Dragon

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Giant Dragon. If you did, you might also like other posts of his, such as this Clubhouse Tour.

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!

Guest Posts, Pop 5

Pop 5: Most Missed Old Islands

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Silver Shell. Enjoy!

Hey Poptropicans! It’s been a while since my last post, but anyway, this post is about the top 5 most missed classic islands.

Before I start, I want to make it clear that I can’t speak for everyone, so don’t feel bad if your own favorite islands don’t come up here. This list was made by looking at comments on the Pop Creators’ Blog and the PHB, and seeing which islands seem to be in the highest demand for return. So let’s dive in to the Pop 5 most petitioned islands!

#5: Super Power Island (see walkthrough)

Because you are given an awesome outfit and the ability to fly, this island is pretty popular throughout the fandom. While the ending is rather annoying in my opinion (why would they give the medallion to Hot Dog Boy??!!) I loved the plot and getting to defeat all these villains all in one island. When do you get multiple main villains on one island?! Coming in way before Super Villain Island, this was a first.

This island has so much to do and certainly keeps you busy, making you go back and forth a million times. It’s definitely in high demand.

#4: Spy Island (see walkthrough)

  • Now you see me, now you don’t.

This one was definitely one of my personal favorites, because it’s actually an island I’ve always dreamed of! It’s really cool when you receive all your top secret spy stuff. My friends and I certainly enjoyed camouflaging and flying around with our bowties like Spiderman.

I feel like what made this island really popular was earning your spy gear instead of it just being handed to you, plus getting to free each agent one at a time, slowly uncovering Director D’s secret. To be honest, when I played, it took me like five weeks from starting the island to figure out how everything came together (shhh… don’t tell anyone).

#3: Astro-Knights Island (see walkthrough)

Do I even need to explain this one? I took one look at the name and it was already one of the greatest islands I’ve ever seen. The combination of medieval knights, astronomical science, and connections to the legend of Camelot made it really exciting to the majority of players. It was undeniably original and all the twists and turns made it truly interesting as well as intriguing.

Similar to Spy Island with the slow reveal of Director D’s true character, the disappearance of Mordred and the princess continuously came up throughout the first half of the island, leaving bits of information for you to piece together. Getting to design your own spaceship was cool, and trying to defend it from space sharks and evil aliens (unlike the hospitable ones of Pewter Moon) was rather thrilling. I enjoyed the mini-quests you had to conquer on the smaller islands like the Ice Planet, and how you kept getting tricked into thinking the princess would appear when you defeated one.

Overall, this island is just a great story. Hope it comes back soon.

#2: Mystery Train Island (see walkthrough)

On this island, you board a train and find out a crime has been committed. Most Poptropicans favor this island because of the stimulating problem that arises out of nowhere, getting to interrogate famous historical figures, and the emotional rollercoaster of how a person is suspicious one second, and the next they’re proved innocent.

I loved exploring rooms, snooping through people’s luggage, running on top of the train, and getting to stop it whenever the heck I wanted just by talking to the captain. Hehe.

The end was great in my opinion. Piecing together the identity of the culprit with President Grover Cleveland was enthralling and somehow made a lot of sense in the end. All in all, one heck of a good island!

#1: Skullduggery Island (see walkthrough)

  • Say Cheese: A snapshot of skullduggery.

Reputed to be the longest island ever to appear on Poptropica, there was always work to do on Skullduggery Island. When you first get on it, you can clearly see the place is in bad shape. Rather depressing, I guess, what with all the ruins and problems.

People say they enjoy this island because of how much trading you get to do throughout, from helping out the locals because I want to win and gets loads of credits HAHA out of the goodness of our hearts, to travelling from island to island, trading tediously to gain wealth so you could reclaim the rightful treasure of Fort Ridley.

Getting to purchase ships and hire a crew is fun, and it was pleasurable solving the mysteries of where the map pieces were. Fighting sea monsters, getting sunk every once in a while, and navigating from port to port made this island interesting and action-filled.

So there it is! Five islands that are petitioned for the most! Put your favorites in the comments. If the Pop Creators are reading this, I hope this gives you an idea of which islands to start working on. Thank you!

Pop Nonstop,
Silver Shell 🥈🐚

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Silver Shell. If you did, you might also like her My Place in Poptropica story, or another Pop 5 list of classic islands missed, here on the PHB.

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! 📰✨