This is a guest post by Beefy Penguin (username: Durbadal) petitioning for Mighty Action Force, the card game from PoptropiCon Island, to be made into a multiplayer game for the Arcade. Enjoy!
Hi there, fellow Poptropicans. I’m Beefy Penguin, and I just finished the PoptropiCon trilogy. My favorite part? Mighty Action Force.
For those who don’t know, or need a refresher, Mighty Action Force is a Trading Card Game (TCG), which is a game where you collect different cards or trade them with others to build a deck and compete against others).
Now, I am a TCG fan (I play Cardfight Vanguard, a world-famous trading card game), so when I saw the Mighty Action Force TCG, I felt that the game deserved much more care and focus in the world of Poptropica.
So here’s what I’m petitioning: MAF should be released as a multiplayer TCG in the Arcade, so players can collect cards and compete with each other. (In fact, they should make a special room just for this game!)
A collection of Mighty Action Force cards.
Each player would have a basic deck, but that could be just the beginning. Single cards and booster packs could be obtained through quests, mini-games, trades, or purchased through credits. With so many characters on Poptropica, the possibilities for new cards are endless.
The game would be played against other players, head-to-head, in real time. A few new rules could be introduced to this game, like a clan system, the ability to boost your action with the power of another card, and to be able to defend against opponents’ attacks with the cards in one’s hand.
Poptropica has a lot of games in the Arcade—but nothing like this. It would be a great addition to the player experience, so I’d love to see it happen.
Until next time, stay popping!
Beefy Penguin out.
Hope you enjoyed this Pop Petition guest post by Beefy Penguin! If you did, be sure to check out our other Pop Petitions!
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 page on how to Write for the PHB, and share blog posts on the PHC.
📰 If you have an idea for a PHB post, send it in! ✨
It’s Lucky Joker here with the member gifts for April! If you’re a member, these items will be automatically added to your account’s inventory upon logging in.
The special gift items this month are:
Blossom Power
Daisy Pot Hat
Bunny Car
I quite like these items as they’re perfect for the season, well… for those of us living in the northern hemisphere that is. It’d would’ve been really cool, though, if we got a Dr. Hare car instead of just a generic bunny, haha! What do you think? Are you a fan of these items? Sound off in the comments!
In other news, over on the Creators’ Blog, new author Blue Tooth gave some sound advice on how to get past the palace guards on episode 1 of Arabian Nights: “How Bazaar.” They also shared this cool artwork to go along with it. Pretty neat!
If you need help on completing the entire episode, or any island for that matter, be sure to check out our full island walkthroughs right here on the PHB! 😉
Also, don’t forget to fill out our reader’s survey! The deadline is Saturday, April 6. Thanks for reading as always, I’ll talk to you soon…pop on!
This is a guest post written by Trusty Leopard, a Poptropican who’ll be sharing a tribute to a favorite villain, Myron Van Buren of Survival Island. Enjoy!
Hello everyone! My name is Trusty Leopard and this is my first ever guest post on this awesome blog. I hope you enjoy this article about my favorite and perhaps one of the most craziest antagonists in Poptropica.
Myron Van Buren (MVB) is the bad guy of Survival Island, a five-part Poptropica adventure that I loved. Van Buren is a cool-looking villain with his hunting clothes, tooth necklace, safari hat, crossbow and creepy smile along with a facial scar to complete the look. A great design, if you ask me.
His catchphrase, “Tally-ho!” is something that I have started using. It just sounds really cool. When I first saw Van Buren and the description for Survival Island, I had some idea of what it might be about, and the villain’s plans. But I figured Poptropica wouldn’t do something like that in a kids’ game, so I was interested to see what exactly MVB’s plans were. Little would I or anyone else have known they did go there.
In the first three episodes, you don’t actually see a bad guy, just someone watching you with cameras after you successfully complete the first two episodes. Pretty creepy.
With the third episode comes your rescue in a sweet-looking helicopter. Your rescuer is big game hunter Myron Van Buren, who lives in a huge mansion with just his chef and butler Winston. (Seems a bit strange to me.) When you tell him you just really rather go home, he insists you mustn’t miss the big hunt tomorrow and just basically won’t let you leave. Totally not a red flag at all.
He acts all nice, showing you his animal trophy collection, but then he makes a ghoulish joke about Winston being another one of his trophies.
But Van Buren laughs it off and tells Winston to go ask the chef to prepare dinner. Winston responds with “Yes, m’lord.” Definitely not normal…
Once you eat the steak, you pass out and wake up locked in a room. That note was absolutely right when it said, “Don’t trust MVB!”
When you finally make your escape, he tells you that you are the quarry for the hunt. O.M.G. Things then cut to an epic mini-game where you’re running from Van Buren’s arrows and his hounds chasing you. I mean for goodness’ sake, he’s a human hunter!
It was a truly fun and exciting twist for an island that was a bit slow in the first three parts and then just exploded once you got to parts four and five.
The idea for this island came from the 1924 short story “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, a tale about a big game hunter named General Zaroff who hunts people who get trapped on his island, just like Van Buren did. I was genuinely surprised that Poptropica did something a little dark for a kids’ game.
Even though it was a bit shocking, it was quite fun to play. The mini-game when running from Van Buren was fantastic, in my opinion. The music during the game was suspenseful, catchy, and added to the whole storyline gracefully. In fact, the music for all the parts of the island fit perfectly. My favorite was the “Escape!” episode music. While gathering the supplies for a trap and trying not to get caught, that tune was excellent to play.
Creepy…
The ending of the island was truly in Poptropican fashion. With the cage trap all set, you blow the whistle hoping to get Van Buren’s attention. Instead, he sneaks up behind you and scares you so that you are the one that falls back in the trap! When you ask why he likes to hunt humans, he says he just loves the thrill of the hunt. That is messed up.
Now I know how wild animals feel when they are the ones being hunted. Not fun. Although I knew my Poptropican would live it was still scary watching that scene unfold, never have I seen a more psychotic villain. (Zeus is just really annoying, but it comes close.) Before Van Buren can shoot you and add another trophy to his creepy collection, Max McGullicutty comes in and saves the day on the bear you freed while hunting for trap equipment. You basically high-jump kick Van Buren so he gets trapped in the water tread and ends up being slapped by two beavers on the bottom. Leaving him there for a taste of his own medicine, you exit on the helicopter with Max and watch a beautiful rainbow sunset completed with sweet music. That nightmare is finally over.
This island is one of my favorites and always will be. I love seeing fan art for this island and reading articles about how he is one of the scariest villains in Poptropica. If Survival Island ever makes it into Worlds, they should find a way to make the first three episodes a little more fun and not so tedious. Add some arrows from his crossbow sticking out in trees as you continue along. Put more escape-like mini-games in the final parts. More history about Van Buren’s family would be cool too.
One other thing I would love is if MVB is added to a new version of Super Villain Island. Have Van Buren be one of the villains whose dreams you have to go inside in order to recover an evil totem. If only Survival had come out before Super Villain—it might just have happened. But I can always hope that if Worlds does add a Super Villain Island, they would add this crazy dude to it.
Well that’s it, my post about my absolute most favorite super crazy bad dude of Poptropica! I hoped you enjoyed it. Tally-ho!
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.
Now there’s a question. Is Poptropica now fulfilling the prophecy about itself it set out in its own self-parody in the 36th island—and not in a good way?
I’m Slanted Fish, here to examine just how much Poptropica is falling into the traps it once warned about. Let’s take a look at the evidence.
For those who need a refresher, Mocktropica Island is a bit of a self-parody of Poptropica, imagining what things would be like when development of the game world goes haywire. It’s a fictional tale, but like many good stories, it does contain some truth.
And lately, it seems like Poptropica’s development is in crisis: we don’t hear as much from the Creators as we used to, and when we do, they’re tinkling with visual updates here and there, rather than the meat of the game: the story quests. In fact, it’s been a whole year since the latest island, Greek Sea Odyssey, was released on Poptropica Worlds, and Poptropica Original hasn’t had a new island since 2016’s Monkey Wrench. So, robot boss battles aside, has Mocktropica predicted the fate of the game?
One feature Mocktropica played with was the idea of pets for Poptropicans. Back when the island first came out in 2013, there weren’t exactly pets in Poptropica, though we did have “Followers” available from ads or in the store (such as the dragon in the picture above). But the Creators knew when they were making this island that pets were a popular requested feature for the game, so in the story, we have kids cheering for the introduction of pets.
Pop Coin currency is suggested on Mocktropica Island.
While Poptropica hasn’t gotten quite as extreme as Mocktropica when it comes to currency, the Pop Coin system does hint at something sinister: charging players to pay real-life money for basic features of the game. In Poptropica, we know it as membership.
Membership wasn’t always like it is now. These days, every update seems to come with a significant portion exclusive to members only: store updates, pets, the new friends profiles, and so on. But back when we saw new islands every once in a while, each update wasn’t so member-focused, in part because membership already had a big draw: early access to new islands. With no new islands, the Creators have to find more ways to make membership attractive for the sake of profits, but it’s only causing players—many without the means of purchasing power—to resent them for it.
Achievements? Well, Poptropica has had ways of marking a player’s achievements with features like island medallions and album photos, and fortunately, they’re not annoying pop-ups like on Mocktropica—in fact, they’re pretty creative.
But not so fast. Remember the ad sales lady on Mocktropica and the obnoxious pop-up ads she made float around on your screen? While Poptropica hasn’t quite reached that level of distaste, it has since introduced a pretty off-putting pop-up ad at the bottom of the screen that re-appears whenever you change scenes. Sadly, it’s been there for a while and looks like it intends to stay. As if the banner wrapper ads weren’t enough!
Advertising your own game on your own game? Not exactly effective, either.
Developers: Where have they gone?
On Mocktropica Island, Poptropica developers were fired by new management.
A year ago, Poptropica inexplicably let go of some valuable senior-level employees who had contributed to the game for about a whole decade. A former Creator, Jessica (aka Skinny Moon), even confirmed in March 2018 that “most of the company is gone,” referring to employees she’d worked with prior to that point. Since then, we haven’t had names—not even aliases!—to connect us with the Poptropica team.
On this front, Mocktropica definitely predicted a bleak turn for Poptropica. These days, Poptropica rarely updatestheir official blog, on time if it all—even for bigger releases—and as outlined above, game updates are not only fewer and farther between, but when they do occur, they’re not what anybody really asked for. Sure, releasing some new items and redecorating some interfaces is mildly interesting, but they’re not going to keep anybody’s attention for long. But you know what will, Poptropica Creators?
Stories—specifically, islands!
Former president of Poptropica, Jess Brallier, says it best in this video from 2013, recently discovered by Osmium and re-posted from “Future Think” by idk:
Right out of this publisher’s mouth: “We’re not doing a virtual world to create a social networking opportunity, not to house games, not to host a virtual economy, but to tell stories… the point of Poptropica is to tell kids stories in the literacy of their choosing.“
Does that sound like the Poptropica of the present to you? Well, I’ve been following Poptropica through the years, and let me tell you: the success is in the stories it tells. The most anticipated updates have always been the islands—those quirky quests were what made Poptropica “Poptropica.” Pets, member perks, fun items—those are best left as secondary.
I think it’s pretty clear that Poptropica has, in not all, but some ways, followed right into the footsteps of Mocktropica Island. An island created as a cautionary tale is unfolding right before us, and the Poptropica Creators of the present would do well to pay attention and revisit what the Creators of the past have tried to warn us all about when they created Mocktropica.
What does Poptropica need right now? Well…
I think I speak for many Poptropicans when I say that I truly hope to see Poptropica return to what made it successful: the stories, or in other words, the islands. Oh Poptropica, where will your yellow blimp take us next?
Welcome back to “Pop Places IRL,” Poptropicans! Today, I’m bringing you an extra spoOOOooOoky setting. This time around, we’ll be traveling to Vampire’s Curse Island! Enjoying the series? Be sure to check out other Pop Places IRL posts.
So, first things first… where exactly does Vampire’s Curse take place? Though the setting is never directly stated, it is implied that the island is heavily influenced by the classic tale of Dracula. In fact, Count Bram is named after its author, Bram Stoker.
And, dear readers, the castle featured in Dracula is none other than the Bran Castle. Eerily similar to “Bram’s Castle,” don’t you think? The creepy tale made the IRL castle pretty famous, because you can even take tours of it today!
I suppose this castle comparison leads us to another question… where is the castle located? If you haven’t already guessed, the infamous Bran Castle is located in Romania, a country in Europe. Specifically, the towering construction is near Transylvania, a region especially known for vampire lore. Though the towns in the area are much more modern today, you can definitely still see the remains of older architecture.
photo: Saxon Village (lonelyplanet.com)
However, when you begin to stray away from civilization on Vampire’s Curse Island, you’re sure to wind up deep in the woods (on your way to Bram’s castle, of course). A bit of a maze in game, I’m thinking IRL Romanian forests aren’t much easier to navigate at night. Though they might be less vampire-infested, Romania’s woods always seem to come with their own creepy lore either way.
photo: Hoia Baciu Forest (dailystar.co.uk)
Finally, I think it’s important to touch on the graveyards of Romania, considering their own spooky connotation in-game, where the grand Mausoleum has Latin that reads “meminervnt omnia amantes,” translating to “remember all the lovers.”
This sure adds to the island’s spooky aesthetic, but how does its appearance hold up to its counterparts in real life? It turns out that Romania has a pretty famous grave site called The Merry Cemetery, filled with surprisingly colorful gravestones. What a contrast!
photo: The Merry Cemetery (thecultureist.com)
Welp, that wraps up our IRL tour of Vampire’s Curse! Did it live up to your Halloween-y expectations? Hope we didn’t spook you too much this year. 😉
But I’m curious… what do you think? Have you ever been to Romania? How do our comparisons to the game hold up? What other islands do you want to see in this series? Be sure to leave a comment with your thoughts below!
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