Listen, we all love venting, we all do it, it’s the only thing that keeps us from going Binary Bard crazy. Though, today I’m talking about another kind of venting… one that’s a common Poptropica trope. I’m talking about adventuring inside vents.
It seems to me that not only does Poptropica love trash digging, but also loves making us navigateย our way through vents quite a bit.
Let’s count the islands:ย 24 Carrot (the vent system in the factory), SOS (when you swim through vents because the ship is flooded),ย Night Watch (at the end, when you’re chasing the burglar),ย Monster Carnival (inside Honest Gabe’s, where you find the newspapers), andย Escape from Pelican Rockย (when you’re manipulating the air vents above the kitchen). Five islands!
Plus,ย an original concept for Shrink Ray contained a vent traveling scene as well, though it was later scrapped (though we still go through a trash maze).
Spy Island and Super Power Island had some kind of vent scenes, but they weren’t exactly crawl spaces like these. (ex. The dogs’ hallway maze in Spy and Rat man’sย sewer in Super Power)
So, whetherย it’s escaping prison, breaking into an apothecary, traveling secretly through an abandoned factory or capturing a burglar on yourย night shift at the mall, it really doesn’t matter. The Poptropica Creators obviously love to “vent”. ๐
Do you Pop-trope-icanos enjoy these vent scenes? Do you find them repetitive or annoying? Fun and enjoyable?ย Talk about it! Converse!
Heyyo Poptropicans, it’s Ultimate iPad Expert here. Let’s take a moment of silence to remember one of the communities’ memeiest memebers.
We’ll miss you Small Fire. Long live your meme-y nature. Welcome to round twentyย ofย PMFMย (Poptropican Meme Face Mondays)!
The lucky meme-faced Poptropicans this week areย White Gamer, AdelaideQueen, andย SiddSaak! And here are the memes:
White Gamer
AdelaideQueen
SiddSaak
Feel free to click on the images to view them in their full glory. ๐
And there’s a smidge more memery for this week! ๐ I’ve been doing art trades for meme faces on my DeviantArt, and this week I have one for Titan-in-a-tardis.
Include the meme face you would like on your Poptropican in your comment (a link to an image of the meme is very preferred).
Post your comment and wait! (PMFM is operated on a first come-first serve basis, so your meme face will come after all of the ones before are released).
Just a note: You do not need to re-comment on newer posts if you haven’t gotten yours yet. Once I reply to your comment mentioning “You being added to the list,” then I have seen your comment and added it to my literal list, so yours will be made after each one before is made.
This completes round twenty of meme faces. Tune in next Monday for the next Poptropican Meme Face Mondays!
What do you think about this week’s meme faces? Comment below.
Hey folks, Cobalt here! Man, that introduction is a total trope. ๐
Poptropica is a unique planet, that’s for sure. Every island is unique, as well. Butย sometimes, the gameplay tends to fall back on tropes. Enter Pop-TROPE-ica: a new PHB series focusing on common and perhaps overused Poptropica gameplay devices, also known as tropes. Toย start off, we’ll be talking about a common mechanismย from several islands: digging through trash! Here we go…
Nose picking, sharing gum, and trash digging here with my best buddy!
Trash digging. Let’s count the islands. ๐
Counterfeit, Cryptids,ย Wimpy Boardwalk, Zomberry,ย Virus Hunter, and Mocktropica.ย Right off the top of my head, that’s it. Wait, let me check the island guides…
Alright folks, I’ve checked the island guides.ย So far, there have been at leastย six islands involving rummaging through garbage. Does the statistic surprise you, or is it totally cool?
Whether it’s searching for tunnel tour tickets (Counterfeit), an oldย bathroom door (Cryptids) an empty popcorn bag (Wimpy Boardwalk), discarded Valley Rain bottle (Zomberry), letterย not addressed to us (Virus Hunter โ ok, is this ethical?), or an abandoned script (Mocktropica) โ our Poptropicans are no strangers to digging through other people’s trash for our gain.
Cobalt there’s like fifty million islands, and you’re complaining that sixย islands have trash digging moments?
Yes, person that is the result of my schizophrenic episodes. Yes I am.
How is there any excuse for an act such as trash digging to happen more than once? How dare you, Pop devs? Do you care about me, clearly the only one finding this an issue, at all? ๐ฆ
Now, I’ve thought of all the possible reasonings behind this, and I’m sorry if you Pop Creators are reading this, because some may come off detrimental.
My first speculationย is that due to the number of islands, they kinda just forgot. The second reason is what I’m all about, laziness. They have the structure for the code, why not just grease it up and slide it in? Working on Orb Legend, I can’t blame them for that. Third, the story. Now, I’ll just elaborate a tad bit on that. How would the islands go if they found the said items another way, or didn’t at all? Sometimes, the gameplayย just calls for a trash-digging moment.
I want to make it very clear that I love Poptropica โ I wouldn’t be working on this blog and be in thisย community for as long as I have if I didn’t โ and I’m not trying to make them look bad in any way, shape, or form. Now, if I were to try to make them look bad in a shape, it would be a circle. (If you get that reference, I love you.) ๐ โค
This post is just trying to compareย similarities within various islands.ย Now that I’ve cleared the air, I think we can all agree that trash digging is not unusual in the quest for Poptropica adventure.
If you’re curious, we also have a PHB post covering the contents of Mocktropica’s trash bin.
What do you think? Is that a load of rubbish, or do you love getting your hands dirty?
Well, as many of you have guessed after seeing our PHV announcement…
The Poptropica Help Vlogs is indeed a prank.
We’ve been conjuring up this idea for a few months now. And there was a lot of work behind the whole thing. So, let me tell you about the making of the PHV.
It all began a few months ago with the PHB staffย brainstorming new prank ideas for this year’s April Fools Day. As we discussed, one idea in particular emerged: turning our blogging into vlogging.
First step was to create a backstory. To introduce the new and novel idea of the PHV to the PHB, we decided to have Slanted Fish “leave” the PHB so the leadership would be in new hands.ย With her “out of the way”, the PHB could beย led into becoming the more modern form of YouTube vlogging. There was some speculation that out of her departure and PHV, that perhaps one was a prank but not the other, but that’s not the case.ย So don’t worry, Slanted Fish isn’t actually leaving.
The second step was filming each portion of the video. We’ll start with the vlog part itself, whereย HPuterpop, Giant Hawk, and I (UiPE) were talking together in the video. How we met up is a fun story in itself, consideringย we live in different states. Giant Hawk and I are twin brothers and we live together, but our friend and fellow author HP lives elsewhere.
Back in February, Giant Hawk (Joshua) and I just so happened to be going down to South Carolina to the city HPuterpop (Andrew) lives in, for an event. Of course, weย had to meet up! While we were there, we were able to meet upย twice, once at the event we were all going to, and the second time, at the hotel we were staying at. It was there at the hotel that we filmed the vlog.
We later found out that then-author Blake had also been atย the same event, but none of us had known about it until it was too late to meet up. Fun fact, I guess!
That being said, it was super awesome to meet up with Andrew, with whom we’ve become good friends with over the PHB and other aspects of online community. Weย figured you guys would enjoy seeing our meetup, so we wanted to share it with you guys! With the exception of me and Joshua, being that we’re siblings,ย this is the first time aย group ofย PHB authors have ever met up in real life!
Anyway, that’s enough of me rambling about that. ๐ Just about a week ago, the other authors began filming their parts of the video. Cobalt Spinner filmed his comedicย drAWihn wiF zPNSr video,ย Spotted Dragon created a Draw My Life video, Slippery Raptor made a Flipagram intro with the PHB author lineup, and Brave Tomato performed an amazing piano rendition of of the Monster Carnival theme.
Over this past week, I’ve been undertaking the third step, editing. It took me a good 10-12 hours on some of the separate segments of the video (overall at least 50-60 hours of editing) and I’ve been working almost non-stop on editing since last week. I created all sorts of graphics for the prank, as well.
March 31, 2016 (Pop Help Vlogs prank)
April 1, 2016 (Pop Help Vlogs prank)
The most time consuming portion of the editing was of the vlog with me,ย Andrew, and Joshua. Joshua and I still aren’t comfortable with sharing our faces publicly, so we had to edit Poptropican heads on top. While the original vlog was about 8 minutes long, we narrowed it down to about 2 minutes, partly because editing was time-consuming and partly because some ofย our ramblings wereย not so relevant.
In fact, the reason we didn’t postย ourย PHV announcement until about 9:30 PM (EST) last night was because of complications with this part of the vlog. Although perhaps the antsy-ness while waiting for the post, expressed by some of our PHB and PHC friends, might even be considered (unintentionally) part of the prank itself!
Anyway, this brings us to the fourth and final step:ย execution. On March 31, Fishy made her post stating that she’d be taking some time off of the blog and was passing ownership to me, HPuterpop, and Giant Hawk.ย At the same time, we put up a header to show we wereย “under construction”.
Between thatย post and the official PHV announcement, HPuterpop and Iย wereย fervently editing the video and preparing for its release.ย Finally, we finished everything and officiallyย announced the PHV, putting up the new graphics on our YouTube channel.ย I really love how the whole videoย turned out, so I hope you guys will watch and enjoy. Welcome to the PHV!
Plus, the PHB (or is it the PHV?) was updated with a new header to reflect our big shift.
–
The reaction to the prank was really awesome! We got over 200 comments just on the PHVย post.
Of course, there were the few extremely skeptical people. (Honestly, I don’t blame you, I trust no one on April 1st.) But I’m glad some of the more skeptical people tried to play along.
A few people were really confused about the whole ordeal. To some it “seemed so real,” and we even got some comparisons to the PHB’sย first prank, the Club Penguin Help Blog.
Among some of the “fooled,” were the saddened, since, as part of the prank, we wereย “deleting the blog”. And we even fooled Poptropica’s very own Skinny Moon on Twitter!
@Poptropica_Help Are you completely deleting the blog? Why not leave it up? So much good info!
Also, a group of dedicated PHB readersย (WimpyKidFan,ย Dangerous Eye,ย Tall Cactus, andNature Beauty)ย even beganย screenshotting every PHB post, so they could be saved forever. XDย Really sweet of them! You can check out the project here.
Last but definitely not least were the many comments I saw (not only on the PHB, but on YouTube and the PHC) fromย people enjoying the video. I really appreciate these comments out of everything that’s happenedย โ it’s really great to see that my hard work and effort has paidย off.
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Well, that about wraps up my recap of this year’s April Fools prank. The PHB is not going away anytime soon, Slanted Fish is here to stay, and we’re not actually replacing our blog posts with vlogs.ย Really hope you guys enjoyed the prank, and especially the video!
Heyyo Poptropicans, it’s Ultimate iPad Expert here! Yesterday the PHB brought someย saddening newsย (yesterday for me, at least โ time zones are confusing). Slanted Fish is taking a break from the blog, but there’s good news as well, and that’s what this announcement post is all about!
HPuterpop, Giant Hawk, and I (UiPE) have been placed in charge, and we’re ready for something new.ย Everyone knows how YouTube is thisย amazing platform for all sorts of peopleย to create all sorts of video content. Well, we believe that videoย is the future of entertainment and news. Blogging is so old school. We’re moving on to better things…
The PHV is a YouTube channel dedicated to videos about Poptropica, with a focus on helping out players.ย Essentially, we’re shifting from the PHB to the PHV. From here on out, we’re not delivering the latest Poptropica news by blog post anymore. We’ll be vlogging (video blogging) instead!
Consequently, we’ll beย closing down the PHB. Once we getย into the swing of vlogging, there will be no need for this place we know as the PHB anymore.ย We know some of youย may be saddened by this, so we’re giving you a week to enjoy the blog before everything is completely gone. Goodbyes are difficult, butย this is what’s best for the future of Poptropica news.ย We mustย take advantage of the superior medium of ourย time, and that’s why Poptropica Help Blog will soon be Poptropica Help Vlogs.
To kick things off, we’ve uploaded a pilotย vlog (which is really several things rolled into one)ย on our channel (which has been in use byย the PHB before, though the vlogging is a first). Hopefully, this introduction welcomes you to the future of the PHV by showing the kinds of contentย we’re excited to produce for you guys. You can check it out right here (and on our channel as well):
We’re using our prior Poptropica Help Videos channel for the new PHV in order toย keep our precious subs. Check it out here!ย So cool, right? Be sure to like, rate, and of course, subscriiiiibe!