Hey guys, BT here with a few updates from the Poptropica universe.
Somewhere right now in South Carolina, our CYDI winner Sarah must be squealing in delight, because the first two Daily Pops obviously for her winning island, Arabian Nights Island, have surfaced:
Desert and… desert station. This is really an obvious Arabian Nights Daily Pop – which leaves me to wonder if this island’s episodes are gonna criss-cross PoptropiCon’s episodes, just like Survival and Mission Atlantis.
Now anyways, if you’ve looked at the Creator’s Blog recently, you’ll notice that they changed their side format… again. Of course we have our two apps, the books, the shirts, and the video games links all snug next to each othe—
Wait…what is that picture next to the Video Games link? That doesn’t look familiar… It doesn’t look like the original Poptropica Adventures cover…
Yet I can kinda see the Ubisoft logo on the new cover….
It looks to me like there’s gonna be a Poptropica Adventures 2!!
But wait… when I look closer… I see two words… For some strange reason, it reminded me of the Forgotten Islands app… Yet I see pictures of the red ninja, the Aztec warrior, that pirate from Forgotten Islands and…I can’t tell who’s the last one.
What’s going on here?? I have no clue. After all, not an ounce of this is mentioned on the videogame page itself…
BT out with this puzzlement….
Oh, and don’t forget to check out HP’s post about PoptropiCon’s…er… officialness. Yay!
A while back, Poptropica and Ubisoft released a DS game called Poptropica Adventures. I have a feeling this was an experiment, and also a feeling that this is the first and last one. This was one of the first things that started to get Poptropica to what it is today in a drastic way. Not many online games can say, “Yeah, we have our own DS game.” I finally got to play it, and the results are in! Let’s get to it!
Design
The fact of the matter is, Poptropica didn’t make this game. Ubisoft did. And even if they are game designers, it doesn’t mean they are the Creators.
Character Design
My take on it is, it’s adorable, but it’s not quite right. The placement of the eyes are strange, and their creepy smile gets to me. But I think it’s adorable because I can’t believe Poptropica has come this far. I don’t know why, but these avatars sorta symbolize that.
Material Design
Nothing much to say about this except it’s the same as the islands. One thing that’s nice, though, is that the background isn’t pixelated like the actual characters. I’m not a big Nintendo fan, so I don’t know if this is normal, but it’s still pretty cool.
Story
One thing I can say about the story — it’s definitely Nintendo. Even I know enough about it to recognize it. It doesn’t feel like Poptropica, and the quests are very – not simplistic, but not as intense as the online game. Instead of finding the six magical items for Zeus, you deliver packages for Hermes. Instead of an epic battle between you and Zeus, you have a race with him. Then he’s all like, “Boo hoo, you’re faster than me.” I do see an effort made here, though, like they wanted the connect-the-dots sort of game play to be in there, but just to drown it with little quests…
If you’re wanting the stories for each island, here they are –
Museum Island – A museum is in crisis. You have to travel to three islands to find artifacts and things to put on display while the curator cleans up.
Super Power Island – Someone has stolen Ned’s comic books. You battle different villains, who each give you a comic book if you defeat them. But none of them are the ones who stole the comic books. You finally figure out who this thief is… Betty Jetty, after finding pieces of a picture of the thief that were torn up (but by who?).
Mythology Island – Hermes (Zeus’s son) has lost his flying hat. He is the postman of the mythology world, so you get sent to deliver packages to Hades, Poseidon, and lastly Artemis — but she can’t take the package until she can catch and give a deer back to its owner. When you catch it, you will obtain Hermes’s hat, which you bring back to Hermes. Then Zeus will show up, and you will race him, and that’s the end.
Astro-Knights Island – The king has been acting strange ever since a strange visitor from the sky visited. You are sent on a mission to find out why. He turns out to be a robot droid, and you have to rescue the real king from Binary Bard (who is totally cute in this version!). You defeat him by, you guessed it, racing him, then leave the king there, because he won’t go back… then you have to deal with the robot king that does a little dance when you talk to him… yup.
Controls
The controls are surprisingly similar to the online game. They are exactly like they should be for a Poptropica arcade game. They use the control pad (obviously), and the character bounces around perfectly!
Soundtrack
This was the first time that Poptropica ever had sound affiliated with it, not counting trailers! I think it may have sparked some ideas leading up to present day, but what about the soundtrack itself? The word that describes it best is “lonely”. I don’t know why, but it just feels lonely. They are good soundtracks, but 1) they get annoying after a while, and 2) there are not many. They are awkward, but they seem to fit in a sad way… but let’s just say that Jeff Heim does a better job.
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So there you have it! Is it worth getting? It depends on who you are. If you are a die-hard Poptropica fan, then yeah, you’ll enjoy it. If you are not… I advise getting something else. I finished it in two days. Did I enjoy it? Slightly. What do you think?
Poptropica: The Official Guide is now available on iPad through iTunes/iBooks! More interactive than the book version, the iPad edition includes quizzes, slideshows, and high-res graphics.
Poptropica Adventures, Poptropica’s first video game on the Nintendo DS platform, reached the #1 spot on Amazon’s sales rankings for DS adventure games. If you haven’t beat the game yet, check out the PHB walkthrough for Poptropica Adventures!
Hark! The PHB now has an article all about Poptropica’s Fonts, which you can find under the Cool Stuff page. Learn about the main typefaces Poptropica uses and how you can download them!
Non-member access to the typically members-only Costume Closet will be ending this Saturday, December 22. Your costumes will still be there, but you’ll need membership to get them.
There’s a new ad for Monsters, Inc. which will be in theaters December 19 in 3D. Watch the trailer video and get a new costume! Boys will get the Mike Wazowski Hat and girls will get the Boo Costume. Thanks Mad Tornado and Ayman351! Looking totally spiffy there.
Oh yeah, the PHB reached 7.5 million views! Have yourself a merry little fruitcake!
Note to the above: If you took one, you’re now a zombie. Didn’t we warn you not to eat any fruit??
The countdown to the release of Zomberry Island is now on the Poptropica homepage! Members get to enter in just five days, which will be December 19th, 2012! Everyone else gets to play starting January 10th, 2013. Thanks Samwow5 and Ayman351!
Also, in case you haven’t checked it out yet, you can visit any of our Poptropica Help Network sites with the links at the top of this blog, for example the Chat. Explore, collect, compete! 🙂
The second costume of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Multi-Prize Card has been unlocked! If you haven’t already, enter the promo code wimpy2012 on Poptropica to get the new paper king costume for boys, and queen for girls.
Thanks to Michelle and Samwow5 for the heads-up. If you already unlocked this promo code for the first costume, you can find the item card in your Store inventory. Just click on the now-unlocked “2” to customize from the new costume! Perhaps it’s for the Valentine’s Dance in the new book, The Third Wheel.
Poptropica’s been busy expanding their franchise, and earlier this week, they released their first Nintendo DS game, Poptropica Adventures! Here’s a shout-out to our friend Blake for writing the PHB’s walkthrough on the game, which can be found here under the Island Help page’s MiniQuests section.
On Thursday, Poptropica released four new books, which you can learn about on their official Books page. There’s Skullduggery Island and Astro-Knights Island, novels written about the islands’ plot. Pencil Warrior is a full-color doodle book, and Poptropica Mad Libs should be pretty self-explanatory if you’ve encountered Mad Libs before – fill in blanks to create nonsensical yet funny stories!
Oh and, don’t be offended by the “sucker” in the title… it’s not you! Just wanted to share a quick joke from PHB reader Daniel. Here it is.
Haha, hope that made you smile! Have a great weekend! 😀
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