Category: Guest Posts

Heyyo Poptropicans, it’s Ultimate iPad Expert here to bring you a special post to share with you guys know a little more about me and my Poptropican journey. Inspired by Andrew’s MPIP post (which you should definitely check out, if you haven’t already), we’re now underway in this PHB series where Poptropicans in the community are sharing their stories. Let’s get into my tale of origin!

I was a late bloomer to joining Poptropica, as many people I know online started years before. It all started over 4 years ago… *ripple effect* *xylophone noises*

2011 | The Discovery

An 11-year old kid sits in a fold-up chair with a flute in his hand and his attention elsewhere as he waited through the seemingly endless band practice to be completed. This, of course, is me.

Finally the time had come, I packed up and headed out from the auditorium room to the lobby area. There was my sister and her friend on the computers playing an online computer game, which would eventually become a big part of my life. This, obviously, was Poptropica. I stood there watching as they played Super Power Island, I was quite curious in this game. It was not until I arrived home later that day that I tried Poptropica out for myself. I loaded up the page and created my character just how I wanted. Soon enough, I was up onto the Poptropica map, which I had then discovered contained many different adventures on different islands.

I decided to start out with Super Power, having had a slight introduction through the island. I don’t remember much after that point from that day, but I must have really loved it considering where it’s gone since there. After a slight bit of skepticism (because of my previous experience with some other online worlds), I created my Poptropica account that I still use to this day, Yellow Sword (aka paultropica6). I remember frequently playing each of the islands to completion over the upcoming weeks. Soon enough I had completed all 18 islands at the time and was in big anticipation for the island to be released, Red Dragon.

It was likely during this time that I stumbled upon Poptropica fan sites. I would frequently check Poptropica Secrets, at the time, but that all changed that spring. I stumbled upon the Poptropica Wiki, through Google searching, and soon became a frequent editor. Through the rest of the year, I continued my editing and constant Poptropica playing. This went up until my birthday on which I got my very own copy of the Poptropica Official Guide, as well as a 3 month membership. I immediately went on to use my newfound powers online. I bought every costume and item in the store and was excited to play new islands before the majority.

2012 | The Wiki

A few months had passed, my membership had expired, and it was a leap day. I decided that I would make an account on Poptropica Wiki (being that I had used an anonymous user previously), so my account Paultropica6 was created. Don’t recall this too much, but according to my contributions list, I didn’t use the account much at all. In May, I decided to make a different Wikia account, this time naming it DaranNorrisFan6, which was basically me stealing my brother’s username from Wikia (DeeBradleyBakerFan). I neglected the account until October, as my before mentioned brother had been editing a lot over the summer and was added as an admin on the wiki in August.

One day in October, Bob Bricks, the main head of the wiki at the time, sent out this message to the users of the wiki. I knew this was my chance to become an admin, and so I joined the chat that fateful day. I remember Bob asking many questions to me regarding my wanting to join the staff, and about what I’d bring to the community as an admin. Bob then became silent in chatting. He was now talking in private with some of the other admins there in the chat. One of which was my brother. I was so excited when Bob gave me the message, I was now an admin on Poptropica Wiki. It was time I changed my username, since my current one at the time was pretty bad. My affinity with Apple products, in particular, the iPad, seemed like a good way to go with it, and the name Ultimate iPad Expert was created.

2013-2014 | The Leader

Throughout the next two years, my love for Poptropica grew and my attachment to the Poptropican fan community grew even more. Bob resigned from his head position and another admin from the wiki, NBerkhof, became the new leader. I soon began becoming a big fan of Thinknoodles thanks to his fun commentaries, and I started commenting on blogs with random named accounts, mainly the PHB.

I eventually became NBerkhohf’s second in command, something I never thought would ever happen to me. And then it happened, I actually became the Poptropica Wiki head. From anonymous user having fun and helping out on the wiki to the decision maker of the entire wiki. I held the title for months and eventually fell into a trap of inactivity and was demoted, but no sweat, as I was added back and was ready to head the wiki as best I could this time.

2015 | The PHB

A yearly election for a new leader took place (and being as I wasn’t allowed to run since I was just the head), I was demoted to second in command, with AwesomeOrange89 (Chad) became the newest leader of Poptropica Wiki. One fateful day in March, I logged into the Poptropica Wiki chat to talk with Chad. Meanwhile I was checking the PHB, as I usually did every week or so. I noticed an interesting post. They were starting a new wiki. At first, I was bummed, the PHB’s new wiki would overshadow us. But then, an idea hit me. And idea, so crazy, it might just work.

I immediately went to the chat to show Chad. His reaction was the same as my original one. An annoyed and angry one. “This is a good thing,” I typed. “How could this possibly be a good thing?” he then replied. I then went into explaining my genius plan! >:) Since we of the Poptropica Wiki held the more desired URL, poptropica.wikia.com (we have now moved the wiki to a new link, however: http://poptropica.gamepedia.com) and our own group of users, we would partner up with the PHB. In return, we’d have the PHB’s huge fan base knowing more about the wiki. Chad and I immediately went to work, opening up a Google Doc and co-writing the perfect email message to send to Fishy. Soon enough, we got our reply. It was accepted. The wiki now became part of the biggest Poptropica fan base on the internet with millions of viewers. I was overwhelmed with excitement!

Within the next few days, Chad and I got into talking with Andrew (HPuterpop) through Skype and we began new plans for the future of the wiki. As part of the partnership, I was awarded the huge honor of being an author here on the PHB!

I immediately got to work on my introduction post and after a week (including the awesome April Fools prank of this year) I announced my joining here! I enjoyed my the warm welcome from all of you guys, and soon got to work on a “secret project”. Soon enough, this new project was announced. The Popcorn magazine was back! And better than ever! This time it was an actual printable pdf document in magazine format. More excitement came later, as well, several fun projects were brought to the community, even a Q&A with the Poptropica CEO!

Over my time as an author, I’ve gotten to know a lot of the PHB authors fairly personally and glad to call them my friends. We created the Poppies (you’re welcome for the name btw), and I appeared shortly in the livestream. Soon after, the Poptropica Wiki had its largest news ever. We moved to Gamepedia and are continuing to strive well there.

I’ve joined DeviantArt and met so many talented artists, who got to show off their skill in HP’s fan art contest and later my fan art contest. My participation in HP’s contest even spurred into my creation of Poptropican meme faces. These became so popular that I knew it was time to create them regularly. And so, Poptropican Meme Face Mondays (PMFM) was born, which you guys seem to love! I have so much fun making those!

The Future

All of this is only the start of it, however. My current history in the Poptropica community may be short, but the most exciting parts are yet to come.

There’s so much more planned for the future and I couldn’t be more excited! 😀 From my PMFM series to the 7 Orbs Timeline to the Poptropica Wiki improvements and so very much more. I’ve got some awesome stuff prepared for the future (some of which hasn’t even been shared with the other authors yet).

I wouldn’t be here without all of you and I’m glad to have you all here. From my 8 fellow authors to each commenter to even the casual viewer, you’ve all played a part. Thank you so much! I will never forget my time here on the PHB. When I eventually leave the PHB, even into adulthood, I will remember. You’ve changed my entire life forever. (My goodness does that sound cheesy 🧀)

I’m so grateful for this awesome opportunity. This community is the best with too many amazing people to name here. I’ve met so many awesome users and I’m sure I’ll continue to in the future. You’re all hilarious, your fan creations is amazing, and you’re some of the nicest people on the internet.

I hope to stay here for a long time and I hope you will too. Long Live the PHB!

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This is my story. My Place in Poptropica.

• Ultimate iPad Expert •

Hey, Poptropicans! Welcome to a new PHB series, “My Place in Poptropica”, where people tell their stories of how they got involved in the Poptropica community. Over the next 9 days, we’ll be publishing some of these tales here on the PHB. Without further ado, here’s the first MPIP: HPuterpop!

Hi Gs,

In 2007, I discovered Poptropica.com, and created an account with the username ‘puterpop’. 8 years later and I’m sitting here, writing this post on the largest and oldest Poptropica fan blog ever. How did this happen?

2007 to 2008 | beginning of Messy Sinker

It all started back in 2007 when my kindergarten teacher directed me to some educational sites, one being FunBrain.com. At the time, FEN had just started promoting Poptropica on their sites. After milling around on FunBrain for a bit, I decided to (daringly) click on the Poptropica advertisement. The ad promised exploration, collection, and competition – plus some kooky looking googly-eyed characters next to what appeared to be a balloon stand.

Clicking on the ad, I created a new player and started playing the available quests every afternoon after school. Originally, I created new characters every time I played but eventually convinced my mom to let me make an account.

My mom helped me out with designing my character (this was before the costumizer, so initial character design was important), selecting the hair and suspenders reflecting a younger version of my dad. The username was chosen for my love of computers and Poptropica. The password was chosen for my love of puppets. And so, Messy Sinker – ‘puterpop‘ – was born, and still remains my main account.

When they added Monster Carnival Island to the map with the ‘Coming Soon’ text, I was surprised – I was surprised even more so when it disappeared, being replaced by 24 Carrot Island. Looking it up some time later, I found this post on the PHB. It was the first time I had ever seen the blog.

2009 | a new account

After finding the PHB, I was a passive viewer of the blog, not commenting but viewing and enjoying the game as it was updated. I made the foolish mistake of sharing my password with “friends”, which worked for a while until one of them changed the password and wouldn’t tell me. Assuming that the account was lost forever, I created a new one, ‘puterpoptropica’ – similar to the other and with the same costume. Bashful Whale is now my secondary account and has most of my original medallions and some unattainable items.

2010 to 2012 | Puterpop to HPuterpop

The first sign of a ‘puterpop’ in the community was in August of 2010. Using a friend’s email address, I commented ‘Love the guide!’ on the Steamworks Island guide. From there, I continued to comment – not frequently, but steadily. I began to post little theories, similar to what I do now.

Eventually, I realized that WordPress comments do not check if the email submitted is legit – so  [email protected] became [email protected]

During this time, I changed my screen name for accounts from Puterpop to HPuterpop – you can read the full story here. In a nutshell: I thought that HP meant high definition. It did not, and it was long after I had set the accounts up that I realized my mistake.

But the name stuck, and HPuterpop lived on!

2013 to 2014 | blogging

This is where things got interesting! After years of using Bashful Whale as my main account, I finally got the idea to contact Poptropica and ask for Messy Sinker’s password to be reset. It was some time later that I got the account back!

I also created a WordPress account and set up my first blog, “HPuterpop’s”. While the name was highly original (disclaimer: sarcasm), I closed it down shortly after creation. However, soon after it was put up, a then not well-known blogger, Nameless Undefined, found my blog and asked me if I wanted to be an author on her new blog, Poptropican Awesomeness.

I agreed and started to post there. I quickly became the most frequent author on the site. During this time, I was looking to become an avid writer on many blogs, requesting authorship on the ATP and even on the PHB – however, I (obviously) was declined.

I’m only going to touch lightly on the drama that ensued on PAw – I’m not proud of what happened there. I and Nameless are ok now but at the time an incredibly ridiculous feud happened. There were people who supported Nameless and people who supported me. I’m still unaware of how far that war stretched, but word got around, and I’m pretty sure a lot of people knew about it.

However, I was on the PAw for quite some time, and it was the blog that I started a special series on: Poptropican Portraits. While I haven’t had much time to work on that series, I plan to in the future, after the wiki project comes to a stopping point.

Around this time, I found a leak to the 24 Carrot Island BETA Carrotene project and sent it to the PHB. My first brush with Poptropica fame was fun, and it got me started on a journey of coding that I would never have imagined. In fact, one of the PHB’s frequent commenters (CC) even mentioned that I may be the next Coder Kid!

In December of 2013, current authors Samwow5 and Blake were added to the team, and I saw an opportunity. Emailing Slanted Fish once again, I asked if I could join – she must have seen something in me because she sent me an invite!

I didn’t post for two days- I was working on the best post ever. From the title to the outro, it had to be perfect – my first post on the world’s largest Poptropica fan blog! I posted ‘Where the Wild One Is’ on December 10 of 2013. I soon after officiated the Poptropican Portraits series and began to make that a weekly endeavor.

One of my first posts on the PHB was ’10 things you DIDN’T know about Poptropica!”, which basically encapsulated what I would post about on the PHB for years to come: 10 weird facts that I had brewed on and found over my entire gameplay experience.

Now, remember how I mentioned that I leaked the BETA Carrotene project? That inspired me to look further. For days on end, I tried to find a way to get into the files of Poptropica. I wanted to be the next Codien. And soon, with the help of Inspect Element, I hit the answer. I found how to look at Poptropica’s file database. I posted this finding to the PHB soon after, and over the two years that I’ve known of this I have learned much of the filing system they use – that’s how Spotted Dragon creates her BTS posts!

The post containing my findings also sprouted another venue for me – theories! I theorized that Kyle Fox, a musician intern for Poptropica actually was Gamer Guy on the PCB. This turned out to be false, but I knew then that I wanted to make theories – and boy did I get started soon.

My Mocktropica Island review is one of my first big posts. It contains 778 words, a good amount of pictures, and took me a couple days to finish. I really enjoyed this type of post and went on to create many reviews after that.

My first live stream happened after a Poptropica blog claimed I faked my Poptropican Portraits (somehow…?). In order to disprove this claim, I live streamed the making of a portrait of the owner of the blog! I got a lot of viewers and the live stream in general was a success. It pushed me toward making more… 😉

2015 and forward | a clear direction

Things just escalated from there. Mid 2015, the Poptropica Wiki contacted me about joining forces with the PHB – to which at first I didn’t want to do, but with further thought and some input from the other team members, I accepted. That was a good decision. Along with help from some key people, I completely “flipped” the wiki, making a better logo, redesigning the layout and theme, reformatting pages, and just about every other task imaginable. I’m happy with what we have now at Gamepedia, even though we’re far from completion.

From there, we brought back a big facet of the Poptropica community – the Poptropica Help Network, abbreviated as the PHN. This was a network in place years ago but faded after a while. Tying together some sites, we formed something even grander than the original network!

Finally, my most recent large project: the PoptropiComic and the orb timeline! A grand compendium of a few community members’ creative efforts – the ultimate fan fiction. The PoptropiComic is a graphic novel while Giant Hawk Adventures is a written fiction – I’m excited to see where it leads!

My largest achievement so far, in my opinion, is when Christopher Barney, a Poptropica developer (better known as Triton!), referred to me in a conversation as “one of the best-known players”. That’s crazy – I was definitely a fanatic whenever I was younger, but I never thought I could achieve that accolade.

This year has definitely been my best – I’m perfecting my craft and am even looking into some game design! (more on that later 😉 )

There’s one more thing I’d like to mention… I’ve glossed over my accomplishments, but it’s important to note that without the help of my friends that I’ve met along the way, none of what I’ve done could have been possible. You’ve changed my life forever.

Paul, Ylimegirl, Justice, Sam, Sydney, Juyo (SlantedFish), Brave Tomato, Blake, Slippery Raptor, Joshua… to the entire community… for the ones I have unintentionally left out… THANK YOU!

I continue to work on my many projects to this day – designing logos, cracking codes, writing posts, and organizing databases. 🙂

And that’s My Place in Poptropica.

TAFN.

-HPuterpop