Category: Islands

Advertisements, Comics, Popstorms, PoptropiCon Island

Wimpy Kid: Long Haul ad, P-Con public release date, & more Twitter tidbits!

Slippery Raptor

Hi guys! Slippery here. There’ve been a lot of Poptropica updates and other tidbits over Twitter and the Poptropica world lately, so here’s a recap! Let’s start with the minor ones.

Poptropica Name-All Islands Quiz

Poptropica recently shared an awesome Poptropica quiz! It’s a name-all island quiz. Can you name them all? Just click this link to take the quiz. I’ve got an extra challenge for all of you: can you beat this score? 😀

result

Concept art: Black Flags Common Room and new PopStorm hair idea!

Another behind-the-scenes moment was featured on Twitter – an early concept idea for the Black Flags tribe common room. Who’s a Black Flag member here? However, if you’ve ever visited the Black Flags room, you’ll recognize that this was not what they went with – it was a rejected idea. What do you think?

blackflags

Here’s the latest PopStorm entitled “Helpful Hairstyles”!  Hairstyles that you can control on your own?! These are odd-looking hairstyles. How awesome is that?

B1pJMksCYAAhL7h

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book 9: The Long Haul ad

The 9th book of Diary of a Wimpy Kid has made it to Poptropica! As mentioned above, the title of the 9th book is The Long Haul. In this advertisement, Greg Heffley and his family visits a country fair, which Greg finds boring. When you get inside, just talk to Greg and he’ll tell you that if you can roll the pot-bellied pig, you’ll win great prizes!

The game is simple, similar to the mini-game on Great Pumpkin Island where you push the biggest pumpkin. You’ll run through moles, mud puddles, barns and crazy fair booths. Here’s a tip: Use physics! (Push the pig with great force from a far spot.) You can also watch a pig fly to the sky and crash a pie eating contest. When the pig lands on the weighing scale and breaks it, you’ll receive two prizes: a Pig Costume and a Pumpkin Bazooka Game (which leads to an external link, and awards you an in-game Pumpkin Bazooka).

Win an autographed Poptropica sticker book!

DK Publishing is holding a raffle draw for a chance to win an exclusive Poptropica Sticker book signed by Jeff Kinney! Enter now and you could be the lucky winner of this awesome treat! This tweet contains the link (note: you must be aged 13+ and live in the U.S. to enter):

Interview with Poptropica comic artist Kory Merritt confirms upcoming graphic novel

One of Poptropica’s artists, Kory Merritt, was interviewed on an online magazine named “L’idea Magazine”.  He talks about his creation, Lost Side of Suburbia and of course—Poptropica! He also confirmed the Poptropica graphic novel  which is coming in 2015.  Here’s an excerpt of the interview. If you would like to know more about this interview, visit this link.

L’IDEA MAGAZINE: You are illustrating a graphic novel for a famous author. Are you still keeping the details secret or are we ready for the revelation of this mysterious author?
KORY MERRITT: Ah, that’s the Poptropica stuff. The famous author is Jeff Kinney, the Wimpy Kid himself – I think I’ve dropped that name a few times already. He created Poptropica and the characters from the Poptropica comics, along with author/editor Jess Brallier and some others. I’m presently drawing and coloring a 105-page graphic novel based on the Poptropica comic characters. It’s an original story from Jeff and Jess, and the script was written by Max Brallier, who has another illustrated series in the works. They’re really cool people. I’m lucky to be on board. I nearly geeked-out the first time I heard from Jeff, but luckily managed to keep it together (or at least that’s how I remember it).

Best of the Lands: The Best of the Best

Who will be reigned as the best of the best? The Poptropica Creators asks everyone of us to judge and vote our own Lands champion! The battle is between Zany Crown’s terrific tree house, Serious Bird’s tasty village, Silver Lightning awesome obstacle course and Fast Lizard’s haunted house! Who’s the best of the best? Vote in the poll!

From Fast Lizard, an amazing paranormal panorama.
From Silver Lightning (another repeat Land challenge champ), this multi-screen course is truly a-maze-ing!
“From Serious Bird, you don’t have to go far for a bite to eat in this town. Does the building on the right shake in an earthquake?”

Ladies and gentlemen, here’s what all you’ve been waiting for…

PoptropiCon Episode 2: Spoiler Alert public release date!

What’s coming next Thursday, 13 November (on my birthday)? PoptropiCon’s second episode, Spoiler Alert will finally be released next Thursday! What an awesome birthday gift, Creators! 😉 Do you want to know a spoiler? Guess what? SPOILER ALERT: There will be an awesome plot twist!

That’s every update on Poptropica right now, so I better go too! What do you think of the recent updates? Leave a comment below!

-Slippery XD

Advertisements, Arabian Nights Island, Cryptids Island, Labs (Land), Popstorms

Arabian Nights Ep. 2 release dates, Disney Infinity 2 ad, & more!

Blake

What’s popping, Poptropicans? Blake here, with a little bit of a Twitter-recap post. Now, we’ve covered a lot of things, but the Poptropica Twitter just keeps popping up with more! If you haven’t caught on by now, this is the main hotspot besides the Daily Pop or Creators’ Blog that you might use to get up-to-date on some of the news and other tidbits circulating the realm of Poptropica.

For example, did you know that Arabian Nights Island: Episode 2 comes out for members on November 25th (which, in a shocking turn of events, is a Tuesday and not the traditional Thursday)? For everyone else, it comes out December 11th (3 weeks later, on Thursday).

Or did you see this behind-the-scenes art made for the Cryptids Island book?

Screenshot 2014-11-01 at 5.02.39 PM

Now we delve into the realm of Poptropica Land for a few “Goodbye Land” creations! The Creators mention in the last one “Until January”… Could this mean that Lands is coming out for all next year?

And to make sure this post lasts for “infinity”… *star with rainbow trail shoots above head with the words “Blake’s Horrible Pun of the Day” on it* Here’s a small recap of the new Disney Infinity 2.0 Edition Disney Originals ad! I know that we got one in the past with the Marvel heroes, but now the Disney Originals are coming out to play.

If you log in, you may get a card with a Poptropican version of Aladdin (Creators, I know you read this blog. Make the Poptropica Aladdin costume a thing. I would buy so many of them). It says to “Come meet the whole gang!” Click on the little bubble thingy (have we coined a term for that thing? let’s call it a Popper, shall we?), and you’ll be taken to the ad on Super Villain Island.

Okay, time to demonstrate my knowledge of Disney. When you click the ad, you get a Disney Originals power which will make Disney’s Stitch, Aladdin, Maleficient, Merida, Donald Duck, Tinker Bell and Baymax appear on your screen. Pictures of the ad and the two cards are below!

Lastly, I’d like to give a shout out to our dear friend here at the PHB, Fuzzy-B. He’s leaving the blog after about two good years of being an author here, and we here at the PHB will miss him dearly. You can wish him goodbye in the comments of his post below. We wish you the best of luck with all of your future endeavors, Fuzzy!

Well, that’s all for now! Blake out! Stay popping, Poptropicans.

Labs (Land), Popstorms, Shrink Ray Island, Sneak Peeks, Store

Best of Land: Haunted, Shrink Ray re-release, & hair PopStorms

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans! Now that the final “Best of Land” challenge has ended, the Land public preview is now over (alpha version 2 is back to being members only). On Halloween, while we here at the PHB announced the winners of our 6th Annual Costume Competition, the Creators featured the best “Haunted” Land entries they received – and here they are (click to enlarge):

From Brave Owl, this is one forest we wouldn’t want to walk through at night.
From Cuddly Ring, a house of horrors with three levels of thrills.
From Dangerous Tooth, a classic haunted mansion.
From Fast Lizard, an amazing paranormal panorama.
From Fearless Lizard, a floating fear factory.
From Friendly Raptor, these are two great tastes that taste terrifying together.
From Invisible Octopus, this is one great pumpkin.
From Popular Fish, it’s a ghost ship adrift on a sickly sea.
From Prickly Fish, we’re just going to assume this gargantuan skeleton creature is reaching out for a big hug.
From Red Singer, there’s a surprise around every turn in this haunted house.

Captain Crawfish sure enjoys incorporating alliteration in his captions. 😉 You can vote for your favorite over on the poll in the sidebar of the Creators’ Blog. Right now, Brave Owl’s intricate tree and Fast Lizard’s grass monster are in the lead. Here are the results thus far:

  • Brave Owl (24%)
  • Cuddly Ring (4%)
  • Dangerous Tooth (5%)
  • Fast Lizard (24%)
  • Fearless Lizard (10%)
  • Friendly Raptor (3%)
  • Invisible Octopus (3%)
  • Popular Fish (3%)
  • Prickly Fish (10%)
  • Red Singer (11%)

Also, congratulations to Silver Lightning for being the readers’ choice for best “Obstacle Course” Land!

From Silver Lightning (another repeat Land challenge champ), this multi-screen course is truly a-maze-ing!
From Silver Lightning (another repeat Land challenge champ), this multi-screen course is truly a-maze-ing!

Poptropica Land is currently no longer available to non-members, but the Creators have stated that, with the help of our feedback and Land creations, they’re preparing for an official launch early next year – which may even be available to everyone (we’ll have to see)! 😀

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As mentioned earlier, Shrink Ray Island will soon be re-released as a SUI (sound-updated island), with bigger screen, sounds, and all the gimmicks of the newer islands! According to an official tweet, this update is coming in November – sometime this month! The official Tour page has even been given a makeover, now with a desktop wallpaper and printable poster (see below):

Oh look, it’s the protagonist CJ, from whom my Poptropican got that awesome striped hoodie! :mrgreen: And… I know we’re miniature, but that’s a creepily big cat. 😮

Also, Members can now claim two new free Store costumes: the Milk Box and Bottle Cap!

(Maybe you recognize them from a sneak peek related to one of the “Inside Poptropica” videos. Speaking of videos, they’ve also re-uploaded the Shrink Ray Island trailer, but it is basically the same as the previous except for the “now with sound” emphasis and new soundtrack composed by Jeff Heim.)

As a classic island, Shrink Ray will come as a one-part story, rather than episodic (multi-part) – and according to Poptropica, more one-part islands will be released for both online & mobile starting January 2015. However, whether this means new one-part islands or just old ones re-hashed into SUIs remains to be seen. Hopefully it’s the former. 😛

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Over on Poptropica’s Twitter, two new sneak peeks called PopStorm (Poptropica brainstorm) have surfaced – perhaps a continuation of the Hair Potion idea? I still think it’d make a cool gold card item or something, and these sketches look goofily grand. 😀

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Last but not least, plans for an Android app are looking steadier! According to this tweet, it will be ready in just 5 more weeks, which at this point means it’ll be available in the first week or so of December.

That’s all for now – be sure to catch up on the posts below for all the latest Poptropica news and more! And here’s the popping bad pun for this post: Pop on like popcorn, Poptropicans. 😀

Social Media, Zomberry Island

PHG on Steam, Zomberry SUI, over-tweeting, & kite video

HPuterpop

Hi Gs,

What isn’t happening in the world of Poptropica? Prepare to have your mind blown with all the new things happening in the Poptropica universe!  😀

Poptropica Help Group on Steam

If you’re looking for a way to connect and play games with other Poptropica lovers, then look no further – we’ve recently started a group on Steam entitled the Poptropica Help Steam Group, in which we’ll post announcements, hold contests, and host events for playing some fun games! If you have a Steam account, then pop on over to the PHG by clicking here.

Do note that you will need a Steam account to join our Poptropica Steam community – it’s an incredible service, so if you don’t have one already, it won’t hurt to get one. 🙂

stemplz

And by the way, Poptropica – step up your game (quite literally) and get Poptropica on Steam! That would be awesome! 😛

Zomberry SUI & Creator discovered

The next island to be an SUI, after Shrink Ray, might just be Zomberry Island – the reason being that Tania Lynne, a programmer for Poptropica I recently discovered online, posted a screenshot of Zomberry in SUI (sound-updated island) format on her portfolio site.

taniaLynneZomberry

Tania Lynne apparently has been working for Poptropica since 2010 to present, which is pretty impressive – she’s worked on tons of islands including Cryptids, Mystery Train, and Monster Carnival. Do you think she has an alias? Could she be the Black Widow, for example? Tell me what you think in the comments. 😀

taniaLynneZomberry2

Over-tweeting?

Twitter has been becoming one of the main outlets for the Poptropica Creators to release behind the scenes shtuff – back in the early PCB days, similar activities were pretty common. We’ve gotten some pretty epic unused art from islands, release schedules, and Land creations from their Twitter – but there seems to be one thing wrong: they retweet almost everything tweeted at them.

Why is that a bad thing? For one thing, Poptropica is a kids’ game and some of the things being retweeted are not so kid-friendly… posts with hashtags including some innap words have been seen on the profile, including hashtags such as “#fthepolice” or “bad***”, or the phrase “h*ll yeah”. Another tweet also linked to a different site where a post made by a player used some questionable language.

To be fair, their Twitter is aimed at those 13 or older, but whether this type of language should be tossed around to the (even older) Poptropica audience is debatable.

Educational Videos

A video was released over a year ago by the Phaebus Media Group entitled “Poptropica by PhaebusMediaGroup“. It was 30 seconds long and consisted of two Poptropicans on a beach.

One Poptropican has a kite, which he shows to his friend – and there’s a parrot named Pippin, for some reason. That’s the plot of the video, and while it’s pretty kiddish, you can’t deny that the animation quality isn’t half bad. Someone didn’t just make this for fun – as you’ll see if you check the video description:

Poptropica is an online animation resource for children. Phaebus Media Group created this animation as part of a pitch process.

While I’m not so sure about the online animation resource part, I do want to mention the “as part of a pitch” part. The video ends quite abruptly, just as the boy points out that there are two big triangles and two little triangles on his kite.

Obviously, it’s intended to be an educational video, which suggests that Poptropica was working on an educational video series at some point last year. Whether it happens anytime in the future or not is a mystery, but now we do have some foresight for a possible future project.

—

Go friend me on Steam if you’d like! I’ll friend back. 🙂

TAFN.

-HPuterpop

Advertisements, Counterfeit Island, Labs (Land), Sneak Peeks, Social Media

Return of Balloon Boy, Tweets on Tumblr, Monster High ad, Best of Land Villages, & more!

Spotted Dragon

Hey guys! There are a lot of recent tweets and posts to cover, so let’s get started! First off, I want to emphasize this new video that has been added to the Creator’s “Inside Poptropica” YouTube playlist:

…Does this mean that Balloon Boy, who has been floating aimlessly since the release of Counterfeit Island, may be returning soon? Part of me is thrilled and part of me is sad that we may not be able to look in the sky and find him there any longer. Here is what has been said on the subject:

balloon boy talk

As you can see, Balloon Boy may soon become a Balloon Man…

In other news, Poptropica is still buzzing about Tumblr! The awesomeness has even spread to classrooms, and look, even the PHB’s 1D costumes are in the mix! (Click to view full images!)

Ugh, I hate it when I’m stuck on the loading page with a ton of vines across my screen. 😛

Plus, some more concept art has been released! The first two shown in the gallery are for the current Monster High: Freaky Fusion ad (see below). There’s also a just-for-fun sketch captioned “tongue tied” where a Poptropica artist experiments with crazy tongues on characters, and another of a boy Poptropican shooting hoops on the moon (and here they link to the Lunar Colony trailer).

For girls only, a Monster High: Freaky Fusion ad is available on Night Watch Island (there’s even an icon on the Map you can use to get there). Inside, along with a quiz game and the promo posters, there’s a freaky portal on the right – it doesn’t have a purpose, but it does look cool.

You’ll find two prizes on the top floor: Sirena Follower and Fusion Power (see below for images – thanks to Scary Plug of PWSP for the pics and insight!).

monster high freaky fusion

The Poptropica mobile app has gotten a couple of updates: first, Survival: Escape! (episode 5) is now available for 99 cents. (Although, of course, you can just play it for free online! Plus, if you need help, check out our Survival Island Guide.) Also, 3 free Halloween costume packs have been added to the Shop on your home island, and the app icon has even gotten a Halloween makeover! Cute.

The Best of the Land: Villages have also been announced! Check them out:

“From Cool Sponge, an old-fashioned village that looks like the perfect place to hold the inaugural constitutional convention. (Cool Sponge also made it into Monday’s Dream Homes!)”
“From Creepy Goose, how clever is this? She zoomed way out for a blimp’s-eye view of her village.”
“From Friendly Heart, imagine waking up to that giant shrubbery every morning. It wouldn’t be terrifying at all.”
“From Ice Age, an intricate desert setting. Unfortunately, Ice Age wasn’t a registered user so we can’t share their avatar with you! Always a good idea to save your game.”
“From Mad Comet, here’s a medieval village that seems to be struggling with a dragon problem. (Mad Comet, too, was featured on Monday!)”
“From Neat Tiger, we can see why they needed to build this village above the flood plain. Looks like they’ve got everything up there!”
“From Popular Shadow, it’s another dragon! Let’s hope this one is a protector. If not, we know exactly what to do (Red Dragon Island reference).”
“From Serious Bird, you don’t have to go far for a bite to eat in this town. Does the building on the right shake in an earthquake?”
“From Silver Lightning, another underwater-themed world! We’ll take the raft, thank you very much.”
“From White Flyer, it looks like a Poptropica Main Street! Even without the blimp it’s a dead ringer. Well done.”

Click here to go vote for your favorite! The poll, from now until Monday, should be to the right of the page. As of now, these are the results:

  • Cool Sponge (14%)
  • Creepy Goose (4%)
  • Friendly Heart (9%)
  • Ice Age (6%)
  • Mad Comet (8%)
  • Neat Tiger (13%)
  • Popular Shadow (3%)
  • Serious Bird (23%)
  • Silver Lightning (7%)
  • White Flyer (7%)

The next theme in the contest, which runs from October 24 to 26, is Obstacle Course. Check out our Poptropica Labs (Land) walkthrough for help. Good luck everyone!

As for The Best of the Land: Dream Houses, Zany Clown’s treehouse ended up as the best of the best according to readers’ votes. Congrats, Zany Clown! 😀

From Zany Crown, this is a treehouse that stays true to its roots. Just beautiful.
From Zany Crown, this is a treehouse that stays true to its roots. Just beautiful.

~SD