PHB Series – Page 146 – 🏝️ Poptropica Help Blog 🗺️

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! 😀

New ads: Star Wars Rebels & Skylanders Trap Team

Ads have been getting a lot of hype recently – what with banners, cards taking you to the ads, carousel slots, and mentions on the Creator’s Blog – and the funny thing is that the actual ads themselves are just billboard ads. The two newest are for the Star Wars Rebels and the Skylanders Trap Team.

hypeAd2

Upon logging in, you’ll obtain two cards that will take you to each ad. After watching the trailer videos for both campaigns, you’ll collect a Snap Shot Costume from the Skylanders ad, and a Stormtrooper Helmet from the Star Wars ad.

hypeAd1

My favorite out of the two is the Stormtrooper helmet, as it has a bobblehead effect – and while the teal dragon costume does as well, I think the helmet looks cooler. 😀

Thinknoodles mention

I recently sent in some fan art to Thinknoodles (a popular YouTube gamer who plays Poptropica), and he gave me his “Golden Noodle Award” on his Minecraft Survival series! 😀 The idea of this is that in each episode, someone who sent in an awesome idea or cool fan art gets a sign on Thinknoodles’s tree with their name on it. Watch the video below and skip to 0:52 to see my mention. 🙂

As for the artwork, it’s a drawing of his Poptropican, Speedy Catfish (his username is thinknoodles), and I put a lot of effort into this one. I also have a new drawing software, which I think will improve the quality of my art, and thus the quality of your Poptropica Portraits. 😉

thinknoodles

Poptropica Land: public preview

The Creators recently announced that a two week long public preview for Poptropica Land will be commencing October 16th (in 6 days!), and will end October 30th. There’s even a countdown to the big day on the front page!

land public countdown

During this period, everyone, including non-members, will be able to access Land. This is a big opportunity for non-members to send in their creations to the Creators. They’ll be posting their favorites to the blog as mentioned in the post. 😀

If you want to prepare for the preview, be sure to check out our Poptropica Land guide and overview here, as well as check out the recent happenings with Land – stay tuned to the PHB for more updates on this event. 😀

Upcoming big launches

Poptropica recently tweeted a “behind the scenes” email from Poptropica HQ about some upcoming big launches. (Oh look, they use Gmail! 😛 ) As mentioned above, next Thurs (Oct 16) they plan to release public access to Land for a Poptropica-sponsored contest. On the same day, we’ll be getting a “New Start World” and some “polish and bug fixes” to Land as well! We’ll have to wait to see what’s new.

The Thursday after that (Oct 23), the first episode of Arabian Nights (How Bazaar) will be released to all! And finally, coming soon to Poptropica’s mobile app is Ep. 1 of PoptropiCon (no date mentioned).

Mission Atlantis (Ep. 3) concept art

Yet more concept art has made its way to Poptropica’s Twitter feed – this time, some beautiful black & white sketches for Mission Atlantis, Ep. 3: Out of the Blue. (Click to enlarge the pictures!)

Poptropica Pioneers

I’ve recently started a new video series on my Youtube Channel similar to Thinknoodles’ Road to Captain Thinknoodles series, entitled Poptropica Pioneers. The idea is that a few days after I release my video walkthrough for the newest release, I upload a recording of me trying to figure out the island/episode for the first time.

From the feedback I’ve been getting, people are really seeming to enjoy it, so check out the first episode below and tell me what you think. 😀 Of course you’ll be able to view new releases of walkthroughs and Poptropica Pioneers on my channel, so go subscribe to that if you’d like. 😛

Free Halloween costumes

If you remember a few weeks back during Poptropica’s 7th birthday, a couple of ghastly costumes popped up in the Store and then strangely disappeared. They have now returned for Halloween spirit – and if you don’t remember, they are the Egyptian Mummy and the Scarecrow from the Haunted House quest, now made into gold card items. You can get them for free in the Store!

halloween2014 free costumes

In addition, you can get some more free Halloween-themed costume cards from the bottom half of the Store page! These aren’t new, but they’ve never been free before today either.

Girls can get the Furry Monster 1, 2, and 3, Werewolf Girl, Bride of Frankenstein, Vampire Girl 1, and Little Demon; boys can get the Furry Monster 1, 2, and 3, Werewolf Boy, Frankenstein, and Little Demon – all for the great price of 0 credits!

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Pnurple. 😀

TAFN.

-HPuterpop

Ten things you DIDN'T know about Poptropica!

10 more things you DIDN’T know about Poptropica!

September 6, 2014June 30, 2015 HPuterpop

Hi Gs,

One of the first posts that I ever made here on the PHB was titled “10 things you DIDN’T know about Poptropica!“, and from the looks of the title, you probably have gathered that this is the sequel. Hope you enjoy it. 😀

1. Lunar Colony: Flag of Poptropica

This was mentioned by deviantArt user “Child-Of-Hades“, so you can check out the original post here. In Lunar Colony you can see the first instance of Poptropica’s official flag, somewhat like one of the United States’ numerous flags from over the years — after counting the stars, you will find that there are 28 stars in total — and Lunar Colony was the 29th island! Well played, Creators. 😛

2. Meeting the CYOA Book’s Author

You can meet R. A. Montgomery, author & founder of the Choose Your Own Adventure books, in the CYOA hut on Main Street of Nabooti Island.

dk1

3. Customizing Secret

On Time Tangled Island in Timbuktu, you can customize the silhouettes from inside the buildings!

dk2

4. Wimpy Wonderland inspiration

The scene in Wimpy Wonderland island where you climb the Leisure Towers building is inspired by a Simpsons game called “Bart’s Nightmare”, in which he is “Bartzilla” and climbs a tower while people throw random items down on him from windows.

dk3

5. S.O.S. Common Room

While this may be known by some, it may surprise others — S.O.S. Island does in fact have a common room on the far left corner of the Main Street entitled “Daggoo’s Fish Market”.

dk4

6. Vlad the Viking

The old Creator, Vlad the Viking, had a Poptropican account with an unknown username. It is the only known account to have three prefixes (Vlad the Viking) instead of the regular two. Here’s a picture of him (on the right) from one of his old Creators’ Blog posts, when he ran a series called Snapshot Sagas:

7. Job Requirements: Poptropica flash developer

According to this Google Forum post by Poptropica Creator Jordan Leary (Dr. Hare) from 2010 (one of Poptropica’s most active years), you must meet the following requirements met in order to be a flash game developer at Poptropica —

Submit a strong portfolio demonstrating solid game development experience.
At least 3 years experience in AS2 or AS3 with expert level skills.
The ability to work well both on a team and independently.
Experience using object-oriented design methods.
Good code organization and knowledge of ActionScript best practices.

AS is the acronym for ActionScript, the code that Poptropica used to run on (I don’t know for sure if it still does). Read the full job posting here, it’s pretty interesting!

8. The Origin of Poptropica

According to an interview with Jeff Kinney by Words on a Limb, he got the idea for Poptropica one day while mowing his lawn! Here’s his exact quote:

I was mowing my lawn one day when the idea for Poptropica sprang up. It’s changed a lot from its initial conception, but the basic idea is still there. We publish every story we come up with that feels like it has merit.

9. Strange Poptropica cityscape

This photo, released by Poptropica Creator Nate Tufts back in 2009, shows an apartment building with an insane-looking Poptropican in front and a leaf monster on the top. The image document is entitled “CityScape”. What could this have been made for? Monster Carnival? Or another unreleased island?

CityScape

10. Ad Creator

Coralee Lazebnikova is a 2D animator, and if you read all of her profile, you’ll find that she’s previously done work for Poptropica and Family Education doing advertisement design. Like Nate Greenwall (senior graphic artist at Poptropica), she may have had a hand in designing ad games for Poptropica!

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That’s all the cool facts I have for you today! 😀 Tell me in the comments your thoughts on these – did you know them? If so, how many? The person who knew the most facts gets a cookie!

TAFN.

-HPuterpop

PHB Sneak Peeks, Poptropica Portfolio

Poptropica Portfolio: Nate Greenwall

September 4, 2014January 2, 2017 Slanted Fish

Shark Boy may have been alienated from Poptropica, but his alter ego (otherwise known as Nate Greenwall, Poptropica’s lead graphic artist) is still out and about, churning out some really cool (and even unreleased) Poptropica imagery. They’re available for viewing on his portfolio website (scroll down for more info!). Here’s a look at some graphics of interest (as usual, click to enlarge):

Wow, did you catch all that?! Anyway, Nate has several pages on his portfolio site dedicated to various works he’s created for Poptropica (not all of which are posted above, but some may be familiar). If you’re interested, you can browse through them by clicking the links below:

Advertisements – designs for Poptropica ad buildings & characters
Dr. Hare’s Lair – LEGO Cuusoo – includes unreleased designs for a Dr. Hare minifigure
Papercrafts – from the LEGO Cuusoo campaign
Character design & animation – various Poptropica character designs (if you look closely, you’ll see the Sultan to be encountered on Arabian Nights Island!)
Posters & wallpapers – a selection of Poptropica wallpapers/posters
In-game illustrations – some full views of areas in the game, including the area by the sea in Ghost Story and even a palace for the upcoming Arabian Nights Island
Merchandise – among various things, the most noteworthy of all are the iTunes music CD covers and kids’ tattoos/face paint designs, both of which it looks like Poptropica is planning on releasing one day! (you can listen to Poptropica’s music at the PHB’s Behind the Scenes page too)
Logos, web, mobile design – graphics relating to Poptropica’s user interface (UI), including an array of buttons and icons, some of which have never been released

There’s a lot of creative work that goes into making Poptropica what it is and what it will be, and the artistic geniuses at Poptropica give us beautiful results. Enjoy the Nate Greenwall collection! 🙂

Advertisements, Bonus Items, Popspiracy Theories, PoptropiCon Island, Social Media

BoxTrolls, new map icons, and revisiting the Shark Boy mystery!

August 26, 2014October 9, 2014 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! 😀

Advertisement update: BoxTrolls

Some new ads are finally here, the first promoting the new movie “The BoxTrolls” (which btw looks incredible 😛 ). You’ll need to watch a lengthy trailer for the film in order to get a cool new “Eggs Costume“.

In other news, you’ll get a card upon signing in entitled “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge“. When used, a bucket of ice will be poured onto your Poptropican’s head. As of late, the Creators seem to be pretty involved with this project, having many of their characters take on the challenge and hints of the game’s founder, Jeff Kinney, taking it on as well. Of course that remains to be seen, but the card is still pretty cool. 😛

And have you seen my rendition of the challenge? 😀

New map icons: PoptropiCon & Land

If you’ve checked the map recently, you’ll know that the PoptropiCon island microcosm has been added (of course it will be released on Thursday), alongside a Land icon that takes you to the feature (and no, the upcoming update has not been added yet).

They added yet another map page to hold these two, with only 6 islands being displayed. A load was obviously taken off of the previous page, but now that page is just proportionally off and only holds 5.

Revisiting the case of the missing shark

If you’ve been following the PHB for a while, then you’ll know about the Shark Boy mystery that has never really been answered. However, if you think about it, you’ll start to find some similarities between it and other mysteries of Poptropica.

Monster Carnival island was an old island (a classic) that was never released and was mysteriously taken off the map. For 6 years the mystery was left alone, the Creators hinting at it here and there. One time was different, however – they actually acknowledged that it was gone. (If you don’t know already, it was finally released about 8 months ago)

Not since the introduction of the Costumizer or the removal of the Monster Carnival map icon have we made an update this momentous.

If you compare that to what happened to Shark Boy, it’s pretty similar – even about the Creators acknowledging the disappearance –

The second Island we ever released, way back in 2007, was Shark Tooth Island, which featured the massive Booga Shark, a helpful medicine man, and one very special boy whose name we no longer recall.

So what does this mean? Is Shark Boy going to make a miraculous return? Will we ever find out why he mysteriously vanished? And could this all this be a publicity stunt for something bigger – a new island with Shark Boy as the villain (hey, no one said he was a good guy 😛 )? Tell me what you think in the comments. 😀

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Eww, spooder! 😛

TAFN.

-HPuterpop

Popspiracy Theories, PoptropiCon Island, Sneak Peeks

BTS Overview & Theory: PoptropiCon, Ep. 1

August 19, 2014December 13, 2014 Spotted Dragon

Hey guys! HPuterpop, Samwow5, and I have decided to start a new series together, called Behind the Scenes Overview & Theory. We thought that it would be best to take all the knowledge that we can gather from behind-the-scenes (BTS) Poptropica files/coding and compile them together in one simple-to-find place. Plus, with three minds thinking at once, a more spot-on theory is sure to come out. 🙂

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW (but that’s what you want, isn’t it?)

Overview of evidence

To kick off the series, let’s start with an island soon to be: PoptropiCon (Ep. 1: Line Forms Here). We have circled/boxed certain things in red in each picture that we think are important/just want to mention. Click to enlarge all the images.

If you’ve been keeping up with PopCon sneak peeks, you’ve probably seen the background above before. The window that has been circled are noticeable in both pictures. It looks as if we, or someone else, breaks in or out of the building. The “Thor” advertisement is circled because dialog related to it is shown further into the post.

Poptropicon alley bts text 4 - edit

This was also found, possibly representing a fight of sorts. The “glass breaking noise” might be from the window in the pictures above.

Now for some dialogue.

As you can see, this is why the “Thor” advertisement was circled before (Bucky Lucas plays him in a movie). Other things that we found connections to were a Fremulon mask and the time of a cosplay contest (more on that below). Now, all of this dialog is from Poptropicans waiting in line for the bathroom. Why do we want to get into the bathroom ASAP? The boxed text in this next picture may explain why.

In this image, you can see that the cosplay contest begins at noon.

Here, we can see where we get the Fremulon mask, earning it by speaking Fremulon. We also wanted to box the dialog about pizza and costume creation because we found image connections.

The pictures speak for themselves, aside from the squid mask. That was circled simply for the fact that this island is definitely going to be filled with cool, customizable objects/outfits.

Hmm… a selfie? A wizard? Sounds familiar…

Yep, that looks about right. Plus, it seems that we have already met this man by the bathroom.

It looks like we need a ticket for some reason, huh? Could we have been looking for the “Power Amulet” in the bathroom?

Here we go, the final facts. There are a lot of guards/bouncers around, along with VIP sections and long lines. But why would we need a catapult? o_o

PoptropiCon is the hottest ticket in town. It’ll take all your wits — and more than a few disguises — to crash the party!

Yes, we can’t forget the island synopsis that has been given to us. It definitely backs up our conclusion…

Final theory

Based on the evidence above, we have more or less agreed on this concluding theory:

We don’t have a ticket to PoptropiCon and need to get in. By helping the people around us, we either manage to get a ticket, get progressively closer to the front of the line (although it’s a bathroom line, so… XD ), or use a catapult to bust in through a window. There are a lot of guards around, presumably because a few famous people are inside.

I know, I know, not the deepest theory out there, but it’s the best we got. Besides… it look like PoptropiCon is right around the corner! 😉

~SD, HP, and SW5

Category: PHB Series

Bobbleheads from ads, Land public preview, free Halloween costumes, & more!

New ads: Star Wars Rebels & Skylanders Trap Team

Thinknoodles mention

Poptropica Land: public preview

Upcoming big launches

Mission Atlantis (Ep. 3) concept art

Poptropica Pioneers

Free Halloween costumes

10 more things you DIDN’T know about Poptropica!

1. Lunar Colony: Flag of Poptropica

2. Meeting the CYOA Book’s Author

3. Customizing Secret

4. Wimpy Wonderland inspiration

5. S.O.S. Common Room

6. Vlad the Viking

7. Job Requirements: Poptropica flash developer

8. The Origin of Poptropica

9. Strange Poptropica cityscape

10. Ad Creator

Poptropica Portfolio: Nate Greenwall

BTS Overview & Theory: PoptropiCon, Ep. 1

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW (but that’s what you want, isn’t it?)

Overview of evidence

Final theory