(Hey Poptropicans! This is a guest post written by Gentle Fang, a Poptropica player in the community. In this post, she’ll be sharing some game tips, particularly for last month’s Islands of the Month, Escape From Pelican Rock and Reality TV. Enjoy! –🐠)
Since Poptropica’s kickoff in 2007, we have seen many islands, each filled to the brim with adventures, puzzles, brainteasers, and fun. But within this wonderful world, there are also secrets that may not be obvious, things that I’ve picked up on through my experiences of playing the game. (For example, did you know that the later episodes of Survival Island are based on the short story The Most Dangerous Game? There’s a PHB post about it here.)
Anyway, this post will be all about these cool tips and tricks! I’ll be sharing with you all some tricks to help you succeed, cultural references, and other neat facts that you may or may not have caught onto.
General Tip: Explore around instead of overlooking things.
If you climb on the tops of buildings, you can find things and meet characters that, while maybe not important to the story, can be just as interesting as the people and things below.
An example of this can be found on Reality TV Island. If you jump to the top of one building, you see a woman holding a camera. She is not part of the story, but what she tells you is a hint about finding a celebrity in the motel.
Similarly, if you go inside buildings they might not seem important, you can still find super cool stuff, some of which you may need during the island quest. In 24 Carrot Island, I got my super cool bright teal hair from drinking the juice that changes your hair color. While not necessary, I do now look a lot cooler than I did before with my typical blonde hair!
Now we get into the specifics…
Although it’s March, I wrote this in February, so in honor of February’s Islands of the Month, I’ll share my tips about Reality TV and Escape from Pelican Rock. These are both some of my favorite islands. The competition of Reality TV really drew me in, as well as the fun escapades of EFPR.
Tips for: Escape From Pelican Rock Island
In Escape from Pelican Rock, we have a prison on top of an island, with the city in the distance. The security is higher than that of the other prisons, like Azkaban from Harry Potter. As the guard with the brown hair so eloquently put it, “Break the prison rules, and you come here.” It’s a lot like a former real-life prison in California: Alcatraz.
For those who don’t know, Alcatraz was the highest security prison in America. It was where the worst criminals went, and it was home to many psychopathic people. The only comfort was the sea air, which has been eroding Alcatraz. Very few people were known to escape, and often they were later proclaimed dead. In short, it was a tough place.
Now for some tips regarding the island:
Get out of prison in 7 days
During the mini-game where you make license plates for cars, which is very boring and generally just a waste of time, I figured out that – assuming you made 7 sticks of gum per day (to the point where the machine breaks down) – you could get out of prison in 7 days.
On the first day, your character only makes 5 sticks of gum, not wanting to make the machine overheat. In total, to complete all purchases, you need 21 sticks of gum. So, you would need a total of three days of playing the game to get the total amount of gum. With four days gone (first day + 3 work days), you only need to work the day you overwork the machine and sharpen your spoon (day 5), and the day before your escape when you have fixed the air vents (day 6). On day 7, you can escape.
Trapped in vents?
When you are in the ventilation corridor right above the mess hall, if you misstep for any reason, you can fall through the vents into the kitchen. If this happens, don’t panic: the guards will not find you in the kitchen. While you can decide to take stuff or stir the mashed potatoes while you are down there, it is of no significance.
Instead, in order to get back up, go to Home Island and click on the island icon that shows up below the blimp to continue. This will restart you from the end of mess hall.
Skip (most) meals
Uh, Cook’s food tastes disgusting. You can never stomach her food, and the twins are pretty sure that s/he never trained at the Cordon Bleu. (I certainly agree…) So with that being said, do you really have to sit through mess hall? The answer is no.
The exceptions are: on the first day when you get your second spoon, and when you get the noodles, as well as when you dump plaster into the potatoes and start the food fight. All of the other days, it is not important in the slightest to sit down. The people say the same things every day.
With that being said, if Alcatraz was still operating with all of the breaking and entering I’ve done in Poptropica, I would be there!
Tips for: Reality TV Island
Well, look at you! You managed to get onto a Reality TV show! And now you have to pick off the other seven contestants in an array of mini games! Well, while someone has to get voted off every round, there are definitely ways that you can minimize your chances of being that person.
Here are my top three tips for Reality TV Island:
Pay attention to what people are saying!
If Merry Muse says that she’s in it to win it and Sickly Skull says she doesn’t care, it might not seem important. But it actually is. The more devoted a person is to winning, the longer they tend to last, and the less likely they are to get voted off.
Therefore, you want the person in the final round to be someone who cares the minimal amount. I know this seems crazy, but I have played the game multiple times and found this to be true for me.
Geyser Guess
In Geyser Guess, the mini-game where you step on different geysers and contestants are eliminated one by one, it seems all you can do is cross your fingers and hope for the best. That’s true for the first round.
However, after the first person gets eliminated (hopefully it isn’t you), your strategy should be to pick the geyser that just exploded. Based on my experience, it’s less likely to erupt again because it already did. Using this strategy, I have won multiple times.
Don’t sweat it
If you know you cannot win no matter what you do, don’t sweat it. Unless it’s the last round, chances are, people will either vote off the person who came in second place (because they are a threat) or will vote off someone who constantly wins but didn’t this round. If you come in dead last, you are actually one of the least likely to get voted off.
With that being said, I wish you luck on your drama-filled adventures with the seven other characters you’re up against. Grandma Gracey and Merry Muse hate me for some reason, no matter how many times I play. Honestly, they’re probably just jealous of my gorgeous hair. (I’m so vain…)
This also concludes February’s Island of the Month hints. If you guys like this, I may do one for March’s Islands as well!
-Gentle Fang
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Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Gentle Fang!
The PHB welcomes guest posting from anyone in our community if you have something to share, whether it be sneak peeks, My Place in Poptropica stories, or any other ideas you might have. We also encourage sharing on the PHC (Poptropica Help Chat).
If you have an idea for a guest post, send it in to [email protected]! 
