Hey Poptropicans, we have a very special guest with us! Thirsty Flame (aka Blank Slayte, or BigMarioFan99 on DeviantArt) is one of the winners of Poptropica’s 2020 Design Your Dream Island Contest. In this post, he’ll be sharing about his winning idea, Goofball Island. Smile and wave!
Hello, this is Thirsty Flame, and I’m glad you asked me for an inside look about my island idea: “Goofball Island.”
I want to get this out of the way first, to those Poptropicans who are aged 13+ and seen some of the NSFW stuff I post on Twitter or DeviantArt, this island will have none of that. I mostly try to be safe for all ages, and most of the stuff I post is alright.
Now onto the island! To be honest, I haven’t really thought about how the island will be played, like levels and all that. All that I submitted was a visual (see below), and the basic plot of the island:
In a colorful and bizarre-looking town populated by joke-loving and silly citizens, the evil scientist, Dr. Blandston, has invented a device to take away the town’s color and goofiness. It’s up to you to defeat Dr. Blandston and destroy his machine before he can turn the entire island into a dull, gray, land.
Plot of Goofball Island by Thirsty Flame
I would like to imagine the island would play similarly to something like 24 Carrot Island, Mythology Island, or Monster Carnival Island. But, considering how new island quests like Fairy Tale Island use “side missions,” I’m not sure how Goofball will play out.
Still, I can tell you how I came up with the idea for Goofball Island. It was around the time the first Dream Island contest was happening in 2013, and I had gotten the Poptropica Island Creator Kit book to help me draw and write ideas that I had. My only problem was that I didn’t know how to send it, so I never entered my original idea.
My original island was called “Toon Island,” and the plot was mostly the same one I used for Goofball Island, except someone was stealing Poptropicans’ sense of humor and you would find who’s doing it and stop them. I came up with ideas for the visuals, such as what the island would look like on the map…
…as well as the medallion, two versions of the villain, and how Poptropicans look before and after their sense of humor is taken. Basically, for Goofball Island, I reworked my “Toon Island” idea and renamed it to “Goofball Island,” since I doubt they would’ve accepted an island named “Toon Island.”
Toon Island medallion 
Sad villain concepts 
Citizen and Clown before and after losing their color and humor
Shortly after it was announced that my island won, I came with ideas on what I thought the logo for island would look like and reworked the medallion idea as well. I hope I’m close to being right with what Poptropica ends up creating.
With the official sneak peek of the island that was shown recently (and at the top of this post), I can say that it was exactly what I was hoping for, and I’m excited to play it when it comes out.
I do want to point out something in that sneak peek, specifically the building labeled “Bosko’s Car Fixing & Embroidery.” Coincidentally, I have an original character named Bosko, who is a mechanic. I made this character well before the second contest was announced. I’m not sure if this was a coincidence, or if they found my DeviantArt page and are using some of my characters.
Either way, thank you for your interest in how I came up with Goofball Island! I hope it will be one of Poptropica’s memorable islands.
Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Thirsty Flame/Blank Slayte. If you did, you might also enjoy other posts in our My Dream Island series, including an inside look at another Dream Island winner, Secret of the Jade Scarab.
The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. Interested in writing for the PHB? We’d love to hear from you! 📰✨
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