Contests, PHB Parties

Recap: PHB Tribal Tournament 2016!

tribe closing recap

Hey Poptropic-athletes! After a month of solid competition, the Poptropica Help Blog’s first ever Tribal Tournament has now come to a close. Thanks to the tons of Poptropicans who cheered, dressed up, and got involved in one way or another – we hope you had fun!

At the Closing Ceremony, we announced on the PHC the winners of the Tribal Tournament, breaking it down by each category. You can also see a collage of some party pictures above. But don’t worry if you missed it – we’ll be recapping them here as well! Since we’ve broken it down, you’ll need to get to the bottom of this post to see the overall winners.

tribe honor

Without further ado, let’s begin!

Medal Marathon

The first contest we announced was the Medal Marathon, which ran throughout the month, and all one had to do was play Poptropolis Games and show us the resulting scoreboard to earn points! As many times as one could! Higher results earned more points (1st place = 8 points, 2nd place = 7, etc).

Here are the standings for the Medal Marathon:

  1. Seraphim – 1284
  2. Wildfire – 931
  3. Yellowjackets – 902
  4. Pathfinders – 816
  5. Nanobots – 645
  6. Black Flags – 167
  7. Flying Squid – 113
  8. Nightcrawlers – 23

Congratulations to the Seraphim for flying high and proving their merit in medallions!

medal win tribe

Artistic Athletes

For the Artistic Athletes round, we asked you guys to create and send us your best Poptropica art in a number of categories: visual art, written work, fashion, and Realms.

The PHB tribe reps then went through their respective tribes’ entries and picked one for each category, then brought them to the rest of the PHB team to vote, with each rep not voting on their own tribe’s entries to eliminate bias. After our deliberating, we’re ready to present our top selections for each tribe!

To calculate points, the PHB team ranked each chosen piece for every category, except for ones from their own tribe. From there, the placement numbers (first place, second, etc.) were added up and then divided by the number of placements that had been given to form an average.

Then the average scores were ranked within each category from lowest to highest, as lower amounts meant it had received higher placement ranks in the judging. From there, each category awarded points based on the final placements: 80 points for first place, 70 for second, and so on down the line.

You can see the overall placements for the Artistic Athletes after all the art categories below.

Visual Art

Click to view each image at full size.

Congrats to all tribes for participating in this category!

These are the amounts of points earned by each tribe for the category of Visual Art:

  1. Seraphim – 80
  2. Wildfire – 70
  3. Black Flags – 60
  4. Pathfinders – 50
  5. Nanobots – 40
  6. Nightcrawlers – 30
  7. Flying Squid – 20
  8. Yellowjackets – 10

Written Work (Fan Fictions)

  1. Poptropolis Games by Bony Bones (Flying Squid) – click here to read. (+80 points)
  2. The New Tribe by Happy Lobster (Seraphim) – click here to read. (+70 points)
  3. Hurdles by Wanderesa/White Ice (Wildfire) – click here to read. (+60 points)
  4. Chant by Shaky Skunk (Nanobots) – click here to read. (+50 points)

No written work entry received from Black Flags, Nanobots, Nightcrawlers, Pathfinders, and Yellowjackets.

Fashion (Costumes)

Click to view each image at full size.

No fashion entry received from Nightcrawlers.

These are the amounts of points earned by each tribe for the category of Fashion:

  1. Wildfire – 80
  2. Seraphim – 70
  3. Yellowjackets – 60
  4. Flying Squid – 50
  5. Black Flags – 40 (tied for 5th)
  6. Nanobots – 40 (tied for 5th)
  7. Pathfinders – 40 (tied for 5th)

Realms

Click to view each image at full size.

No Realms entry received from Nightcrawlers, Pathfinders, and Wildfire.

These are the amounts of points earned by each tribe for the category of Realms:

  1. Nanobots – 80
  2. Black Flags – 70
  3. Flying Squid – 60
  4. Seraphim – 50
  5. Yellowjackets – 40

Honorable Mentions

These entries did not influence the voting process, but we thought they were too good not to be shown here! A few of them are from PHB authors, who did not enter unless their tribe did not make an entry. Click to view full images.

Plus, the Seraphim tribe had so many entries you can check them out in this imgur album.

Placements

These are the amounts of points earned by each tribe for every art category combined:

  1. Seraphim – 270 (80 + 70 + 70 + 50)
  2. *Flying Squid – 210 (20 + 80 + 50 + 60)
  3. *Nanobots – 210 (40 + 50 + 40 + 80)
  4. Black Flags – 170 (60 + 0 + 40 + 70)
  5. Wildfire – 150 (70 + 0 + 80 + 0)
  6. Yellowjackets – 110 (10 + 0 + 60 + 40)
  7. Pathfinders – 90 (50 + 0 + 40 + 0)
  8. Nightcrawlers – 30 (30 + 0 + 0 + 0)

*Flying Squid and Nanobots are tied for second overall in Artistic Athletes.

Congratulations to the Seraphim for their championship in the field of artistic endeavor!

Tribal Thinkers

In the Tribal Thinkers round, we set out some brain-bending puzzles to test your Poptropica knowledge, with trivia questions and Stolen Snapshot challenges abound. Check out how your tribe fared below!

Placements

  1. Pathfinders – 245
  2. Seraphim – 180
  3. Wildfire – 175
  4. Flying Squid – 170 (tied for 4th)
  5. Yellowjackets – 170 (tied for 4th)
  6. Nanobots – 170 (tied for 4th)
  7. Black Flags – 130
  8. Nightcrawlers – 0

Congratulations to the Pathfinders for finding the path to the most answers!

thinkers tribe win

Answers

Now for the answers to each question! How many did you get right?

Questions about Poptropica (5 points each)

  1. When was Poptropica founded? September 2007
  2. What brand of soda does Gamer Guy drink? Valley Rain
  3. What item on Shark Tooth Island isn’t actually needed in the quest? Shark Fin
  4. What is carved on the tree in the Lewis & Clark Expedition on Time Tangled Island? “Clark was here”
  5. What are the names of the B.A.D’s guard dogs on Spy Island? Fang, Slasher, and Fluffy
  6. How much did the Astro-Knights Early Access pass cost? 500 credits
  7. The Tabloid on Reality TV advertises an article about dating who? Black Widow
  8. What Greek letters are on the Drachma coin on Mythology Island? AθE – alpha theta epsilon
  9. What does Sprocket from Steamworks Island want to call his autobiography? I, Robot
  10. For which island did Poptropica first launch its own external website as a promotion for the island and what was the website? Cryptids Island – mewsfoundation.org
  11. Which island’s name is also a possible Poptropica player name? Red Dragon
  12. Which island contains an altered version of the painting American Gothic by Grant Wood? Game Show Island (inside the museum on Main Street)
  13. What does the binary code found on the recycle billboard outside the Game Show Main Street factory translate to? “Robot”
  14. Which island has a common room that has no name, and what is the room? Vampire’s Curse – a barn (also accepted Poptropolis Games room as an answer)
  15. What is the name of the ship in Captain Crawfish’s dream on Super Villain Island? H.M.S Seachicken
  16. Which time period on Time Tangled Island requires an item from another time period to collect the misplaced artifact? Vikings, 831 A.D.
  17. Which island has a character claiming to be from “Time Twisted Island”? Shark Tooth
  18. Where did Dr. Spyglass, from Spy Island, use to work? PASE
  19. Who was the Ice Arrow, seen in Astro-Knights, crafted by? Rime the Wizard
  20. In the trash bin on Mocktropica Island, what is the name of Zeus’s tree character? Spruce

Questions about the PHB team (5 points each)

  1. What is Brave Tomato’s favorite island? Mythology
  2. What was Slanted Fish’s first Poptropica account? Scary Tomato
  3. Spotted Dragon made a fansite about Poptropica and _? Adventure Time
  4. How did Slippery Raptor discover Poptropica? A magazine called K-Zone
  5. Which island did Ultimate iPad Expert play first? Super Power
  6. Who is HPuterpop’s character designed to resemble? His dad (a younger version)
  7. What was the name of Koi (Spencer)’s second Poptropica account? Friendly Gamer
  8. What place did Ylimegirl win on the Reality TV Island Champions Map? 4th place

Bonus question (10 points): What’s the name of Skinny Moon’s puppy? Toby

Stolen Snapshots (10 points each)

These were the Stolen Snapshot challenges given by Slippery Raptor in the Tribal Thinkers round. Below, you’ll find the answers for where each snapshot can be found in-game.

  1. SOS Island
  2. Lunar Colony
  3. Arabian Nights Episode 2
  4. Wild West
  5. Poptropolis Games
  6. Game Show
  7. Counterfeit
  8. Ghost Story
  9. Poptropolis Games
  10. Mythology

Shout-out to Creepy Goose of the Pathfinders tribe for getting all of them right! 🌟

Overall Standings

And the winner is…

Well, to keep the suspense going, we’re going to work from the bottom. In 8th place, we have – lean and mean, but not too keen – the Nightcrawlers! Better seize the day next time, ‘Crawlers.

nightcrawlers

Waving their mighty dark banner above the sea where the squids dwell, in 7th place we have the Black Flags! Arrr, at least they weren’t dead last.

black flags

Swimming in at 6th place are the Flying Squid, who, for a small tribe, still played a decent share in the tournament! Not bad, Squiddies. Just keep swimming!

flyingsquid

Who’s won 5th place? According to our heavy data-crunching calculations, it’s the Nanobots! At least their processing power got a workout.

nanobots

Following their GPS, the Pathfinders have found their way to 4th place. A fine finish to their journey, and nobody got lost on the way!

pathfinders

Swarming in at 3rd place, we have the Yellowjackets, with not even a little sting in their pride. These buzzers were pretty close to the sweet taste of victory with winning the bronze!

yellowjackets

The intensity is heating up for 2nd place – and it’s Wildfire who nabbed the silver! Feel the burn, because this team isn’t going to be extinguished without a fight. And the crowd goes… WILD!

wildfire

Which leaves, in 1st placeSeraphim! Congratulations to our champions who reign from on high! (cue angelic choir) Spread those wings proudly, because the glory is yours! Gold jerseys get the gold!

seraphim

Thanks to Slippery Raptor for these awesome animated tribe gifs!

Here’s a look at the overall standings for each tribe, with the total amount of points won:

  1. Seraphim – 1734 (1284 + 270 + 180)
  2. Wildfire – 1256 (931 + 150 + 175)
  3. Yellowjackets – 1182 (902 + 110 + 170)
  4. Pathfinders – 1151 (816 + 90 + 245)
  5. Nanobots – 1025 (645 + 210 + 170)
  6. Flying Squid – 493 (113 + 210 + 170)
  7. Black Flags – 467 (167 + 170 + 130)
  8. Nightcrawlers – 53 (23 + 30 + 0)

overall seraphim

Before we wrap up, there’s one more award we want to give out… the Most Valuable Player!

This Poptropican pulled more than his weight in the Tribal Tournament, making up the majority of the Pathfinders’ tribe’s score and bringing more spirit on their PHC tribe channel than the PHB rep of the team. According to this player’s profile, he’s played through the Poptropolis Games almost sixty times!

So from all of us at the PHB… Lucky Joker, you da real MVP.

mvp tribe luckyjoker

Shout-outs also to Messy Thunder of Seraphim and Perfect Sky of Yellowjackets for also playing a ton of Poptropolis Games enough to rival LJ’s score – however, it was Lucky Joker who carried his team even when no one else did. Congrats to all three!

Well, that concludes the first ever Poptropica Help Blog Tribal Tournament! We hope you had fun competing and participating in our various competitions, cheering on your tribe, and enjoying the tribal colors on the PHC (Poptropica Help Chat)!

Remember, the PHC on Discord is always open for Poptropicans of all ages to hang out and have fun in a safely moderated chat environment, and you’ll often see PHB staff around too. We hope you’ll stick around and get to know this great community!

tribepop

🏅 faster, higher, stronger 🏅

– the Poptropica Help Blog team –

Contests, PHB Parties

Recap: PHB Tribal Tournament – Opening Ceremony!

tribe opening

Ladies and gentlemen, the Poptropica Help Blog presents… the PHB Tribal Tournament!

And here come the tribes now! Bravely brandishing her black flag, the dread pirate Brave Tomato waves to the crowd, leading a few of her fellow Black Flags into the ceremony. Don’t you dare throw a tomato.

Then comes the captain of the Flying Squid, Slanted Fish, guiding her school of fish in the procession. She reaches for an arrow and lights up the flame of the Games!

We couldn’t have televised these grand events without our technical support – here come the Nanobots now, led by the fearless Spotted Dragon, and down the track they march!

Once night falls, you may see more of them, but next come the Nightcrawlers, with HPuterpop at the forefront while the rest of the team crawls on by!

They surely aren’t lost – the Pathfinders know where it’s at, because they’ve arrived right on time, carefully calculating every step with their golden compasses and making their leader Koi proud!

Descending from the heavens now are the Seraphim, with archangel Ylimegirl proudly directing her fellow tribesmates as they fly into flawless formation. A majestic sight to behold!

Fwooom! The Poptropolis inferno is further ignited as the Wildfire team arrives, blazing the flames to new heights! It’s totally lit, and they know it, with feisty skipper Slippery Raptor leading the cheer: “What team?!” “WILDFIRE!”

Finally, finishing the procession we have the Yellowjackets, with bee king Ultimate iPad Expert leading his colony. They sure know what the buzz is all about!

And that’s all eight Tribes of the Tribal Tournament! Give a cheer for your team!!

Earlier this week, we invited everyone to attend the Opening Ceremony of our Tribal Tournament, and were pumped to see many of you there! You can check out the recap picture above to see some of the highlights, which included Multiverse game battles, dressing up in cool tribe hats and other spirited gear, and of course, having fun on the PHC! Thanks to Ylimegirl and WimpyKidFan for their contributions to the collage, and thanks to all who came and played! Hope you enjoyed the Rio 2016 Olympics opening ceremony later that day as well – which country are you rooting for? 😉

The Tribal Tournament continues in full swing, and remember, you can keep earning points for your tribe by playing through Poptropolis Games Island and uploading a screenshot of your final scoreboard (as many times as you can!) either via the PHC (on your tribe channel) or this form (if you can’t get on the PHC). We’re not revealing scores until the end, but for now, these are the tribes in the lead:

  1. Seraphim 👼
  2. Yellowjackets 🐝
  3. Pathfinders 🔦

Congratulations if your tribe is among the top three! If not – it’s time to step up your game!

Start with the Medal Marathon (more details in our original post), and look forward to more tribal competitions coming soon!

poptribe medal

Get competing, and of course, enjoy the epic Poptropolis Games music!

Contests, PHB Parties

On your marks – here comes the PHB Tribal Tournament!

poptribe

Hey Poptropic-athletes! As you may be aware, the Rio Olympics of 2016 are coming up, and that’s sure to be exciting – so exciting, in fact, that here at the PHB, we’re bringing the fun of competition to the Poptropica community! In case the Poppies wasn’t enough exhilaration, we’ve got a BIG Tribal Tournament planned, and we’re looking for athletes of all kinds to compete. Are you ready?!

Poptropica has their own version of teams known as tribes, which you will have encountered if you’ve ever played Poptropolis Games Island or visited your own friend profile. If you don’t belong to a tribe yet (gasp), check out the PHB’s guide to Tribes and find one that suits you!

We’ll be kicking off the event with an Opening Ceremony on Friday, August 5, 2pm Eastern time (that’s 1pm Central, 12pm Mountain, 11am Pacific, and for all other time zones, check a time converter). It’ll be your usual party on the PHC at discord.me/thePHC – a completely safe chatroom environment where PHB staff and other Poptropicans regularly hang out – with Multiverse, games, and more!

As the invite graphic suggests, it’s earlier in the day so you have a chance to kick off the actual, NOT-Poptropica Olympics on TV later on! (The real-world Olympic ceremony starts at 7pm EST the same day!) Feel free to pop in and out as your schedule permits – you’ll usually find Poptropicans online at this time! (Also, shout-out to Yujo for designing the pixel-style tribe flags!)

poptribe opening

As you can see from the PHB header above, each of the PHB authors are representing one of the eight tribes of Poptropica. (Some of our profiles may say otherwise, since we had to make some compromises in order to each represent one of the eight.) Here they are –

  • Black Flags – Brave Tomato
  • Flying Squid – Slanted Fish
  • Nanobots – Spotted Dragon
  • Nightcrawlers – HPuterpop
  • Pathfinders – Koi
  • Seraphim – Ylimegirl
  • Wildfire – Slippery Raptor
  • Yellowjackets – Ultimate iPad Expert

And we’ve got a lot more planned for the tournament! However, to participate, it’s best if you can access the PHC (Poptropica Help Chat). (We would like to emphasize that it is a completely child-friendly environment, with moderators around to prevent trouble and block offensive content, and is used by many kids in the Poptropica community.)

Once you’ve picked a tribe, head over to the PHC, and create an account if you haven’t already (it only takes seconds). You’ll notice that we’ve set up channels (located to the left) that you can talk in – the #main channel is the main one. To the right, you’ll find a list of users online, including PHB staff and moderators. To join the Tribal Tournament, you should then alert one of the staff to add you into the tribe of your choice, either by asking on the #main channel or privately messaging a staff moderator.

You should soon be added into a role within the PHC that declares your chosen tribe. Choose wisely, because you can only be in one tribe! Once you’re added, you should see a new channel that has the name of your tribe. This is where you can communicate with others in your tribe and post things that can earn points for your tribe (more on that soon!).

For now, we’re announcing the first way you can earn points for your tribe… the MEDAL MARATHON!

poptribe medal

To compete in the Medal Marathon, all you have to do is:

  1. Play Poptropolis Games Island, and right at the end, take a screenshot of the scoreboard (instructions here). Don’t worry if you forget, as long as you haven’t restarted the island – just click on the “Overall Rankings” scoreboard in the stadium area to see it. Please make sure the scoreboard is completed!
  2. Head over to the PHC and find your tribe’s channel (as explained above). Post your screenshot of the scoreboard into your tribe’s channel (you can drag and drop the image into Discord, or click the upload button (instructions here). OR You can upload the picture at this form – no PHC participation needed!
  3. That’s all! Your tribe representative (the PHB staffer assigned to your tribe) will calculate the points you’ve earned, along with the contributions of everyone else in the tribe.
  4. You can do this as many times as you like to earn further points for your tribe. This will go on throughout most of the month, with the final day for the Medal Marathon being August 24.

poptropolis scoreboard

In case you’re wondering how points are calculated for this event, we’ll take the overall rank you earned and assign it a point value. If you are 1st place, as seen in the scoreboard above, you’ll get 8 points, 2nd will get 7, 3rd will get 6, 4th will get 5, 5th will get 4, 6th will get 3, 7th will get 2, and 8th place will earn 1 point. Each tribe rep will keep count of scores as the days go along, but we will not announce the points of every tribe until the end of the event!

Again, even if you can’t participate on the PHC, we hope you will at least earn points for your tribe by playing the Poptropolis Games Medal Marathon and uploading your scoreboard here.

We’ve got a few more things planned in this epic tribe showdown, but for now, go out and explore, collect, compete! May the best tribe win!

– the PHB tribe reps –

Contests, PHB Parties, Poppies, Web Development

Recap and a wrap: Poppies 2016 Party!

Hey Poppie-troppie-cans!

As you’ve no doubt noticed on the PHB, over the past couple of weeks we’ve been hosting The Poppies, which is our Poptropica community awards event! We’re thankful for everyone who participated in nominating, voting, dressing up, partying, and of course, appreciating.

The main event, the Poppies party and winners livestream, took place on July 26, 2016 – the PHB’s 8th anniversary. Check out the well-dressed Poptropicans in the party collage below!

poppies2016 recap

Between the Poppies winners being announced via livestream (check out the winners here!), jokes and chatter filling up the PHC, and rounds of game battles, cake throws, and 8th birthday pigs in Multiverse rooms, it was a lot of fun and frenzy for everyone involved, including the PHB staff of course!

Here at the PHB, we’re amazed and grateful for all of your support, and how it has carried us for eight whole years. This year, in 2016, we began publishing Poptropica stories from the community, known as My Place in Poptropica. It has been quite interesting to hear your stories, and we’re honored to be part of it. We look forward to even more poppin’ times in the future.

Also, you may have noticed some new changes here on the PHB. They will be discussed further in another post, but we hope you enjoy them now and onwards. In the meantime, if you are experiencing any downtime, please just wait about half a minute and then do a quick refresh on the page.

One of the biggest new changes to highlight is the onsite forums – discussion boards right here on the PHB, for connecting our community in matters both on and off Poptropica. Unlike the fast-paced nature of the PHC, forum messages can stay for a while, and is its own medium worth exploring, so we hope you’ll check it out! We’d love to hear feedback as well.

Thanks again to all of you for being part of the Poptropica community, and we hope you enjoyed the awards for 2016. Congratulations to all the winners, and see you next time on the red carpet!

🌟 Stay popping, Poptropicans! 🌟

– the PHB team –

Contests, Livestreams, PHB Parties, Poppies

Join us for the Poppies 2016 Party and Livestream!

Hey Poptropi-ladies and Poptropi-gents,

You’ve nominated, you’ve voted… and very soon, it will be time to reveal the winners of this year’s Poptropica Community Awards, or as we affectionately call them, the Poppies!

Like last year, we’ll be celebrating with a party on the PHC while announcing the winners via a livestream. Everyone’s invited to attend, and here are the details below!

poppies16 party

As detailed in the invitation above, the party is this coming Tuesday, July 26, the date of the PHB’s anniversary – which had the most votes during the voting round!

It’s going to be the PHB’s 8th birthday, so I guess you could say that makes us the PH8 (because 8 looks like a B, get it? ha, ha). But despite our pH level, I promise it’ll be anything but basic.

The party begins at 7pm EST (that’s 6pm CST / 5pm MST / 4pm PST) on our chat, the PHC, and the livestream will also begin at around that time. If you live in a time zone that’s not listed, use a timezone converter to figure out what time that may be in your area (in some places, it may be Wednesday morning). We hope you can make it, or at least pop in at a later time!

The livestream link will be posted on the PHC during the party, so check there when the time comes if you’d like to watch along! Don’t worry about missing it, the video will still be viewable later. The awards presentation will be hosted by us PHB authors, so be sure to check it out if you have the chance!

At the same time, you can also chat with Poptropicans on our Poptropica Help Chat on Discord, meeting up in Multiverse party rooms and having a good time! We’ve seen a lot of awesome Poppies formal outfits from many you guys, and now’s your chance to dazzle everyone on the big day! Dress up your best in tuxes, ties, dresses – and of course, the 8th birthday balloon (if you have it) to celebrate the PHB’s 8th birthday! It’s going to be a poppin’ time, so see you there!

If you have any questions at all, comment below and we’ll answer them for you!

– the Poppies Help Blog –