Category: PHB Series

Pop 5

Pop 5: The Very Worst Poptropicans

Happy Lobster

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Heya there! It’s Happy Lobster, with yet another Pop 5!

So, Poptropica is full of brilliant and likable characters… but there are also a lot of Poptropicans who are more than a bit of a pain to be around. This post is all about the latter. Here’s a list of 5 characters who are out to ruin Poptropicans’ lives!

#5: The Warden (Escape From Pelican Rock Island)

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Well, this slightly pretentious warden from EFPR Island isn’t exactly the most likable person: he has no respect for any of his prisoners (which maybe isn’t a great surprise, being the warden of a prison), particularly you.

That’s to be expected, but still, he’s a little more cranky than your average prison warden.

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#4: Zeus (Mythology Island)

MythologyCharacterFor the king of the gods in Greek mythology, he definitely doesn’t make a great impression throughout Mythology Island. From sending you off to collect some sacred items in return for immortality to laughing in your face once you obtain them, he’s definitely not doing you any favors… just trying to dominate Poptropica.

Then [spoiler], when he re-appears in Super Villain, he asks you to fetch some more powerful objects, and once you get them, he laughs in your face and tries to take over Poptropica, again. Bit of a one-track mind, Zeus has.

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#3: Myron Van Buren (Survival Island)

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Over in Survival Island, MVB spies on you during three of its episodes, where you nearly freeze to death, nearly starve to death and nearly fall off a radio tower multiple times. Then, when you manage to get the radio tower working, he conveniently arrives to rescue you as if he only found you because of the radio.

Then he gives you a warm bed, a “kind” gesture only slightly ruined by giving you a poisoned meal to make you drowsy, locking your bedroom door, and then announcing that you get the honor of being the subject of his hunt, as if you were some prize animal. Well, at least he fills just about all villain conventions.

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#2: Kirk Strayer (Back Lot Island)

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Kirk Strayer is supposed to be one of the greatest and most famous actors of all time in Poptropica. (Well, I’d never heard of him till I set foot on Back Lot Island, but I digress.) Anyway, when you actually meet him in person… well, he turns out to be a bit of a disappointment.

He throws a temper tantrum when you interrupt his acting and storms away to his caravan, forcing you and the director Carson Willis to chase after him. He says he’ll only come out if you fetch him a “half-caf leviathan latte-espresso, on the double!” and throws a coffee cup out of the window. (Well, at least you learn some random coffee information no-one asked for.) Then, you find him arguing with Carson yet again about how he doesn’t want to act as a gorilla.

Well, at least he does a exceedingly superb job of acting a spoiled brat.

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#1: Samuel Brains (Zomberry Island)

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This guy was the whole reason the Zomberry epidemic began – it was all because of his infected blueberries – and, to make up for it, he gives out his deepest sympathies and apologies about it by… giving free certificates for his own smoothies?!

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Moreover, why does he look like he picked out his outfit while blindfolded? Maybe that’s one of the many reasons Sarah Snooty didn’t enjoy her birthday party so much. For someone with the name Brains, you’d think he’d have some, huh?

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And on that note, that concludes this post. Is there any other Poptropican who’s even more irritating and annoying who deserves to be on this list? Share your thoughts and loathing in the comments below!

Stay popping! ^^

–

Pop 5

Pop 5: Most Detestable Updates

Purple Claw

This post originally appeared on Clawtropica as Pop 7: Poptropica’s Most Hated Updates. The PHB version has been made into a Pop 5, and we encourage you to see the original post for the last two items. This list represents only the opinions of the author, Purple Claw.

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Poptropica is a really interesting game, to say at least. Although it’s got an awesome community of fans, we’re sometimes left hoping for better. So let’s take a look at some of the most hated updates in Poptropica’s history!

Keep in mind that I don’t necessarily hate all these updates myself (hate is a really strong word, after all), but they are disliked by a majority of Poptropica fans.

#5: THE HOME ISLAND MOVIE THEATER

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When the Movie Theater first showed up, everyone was super pumped about what would be inside… but when it got released, everyone absolutely hated it.

The design of the building and the rich man outside the building talking about it made it look like it was going to be AMAZING, but it was… um… how do I put this up nicely… a pile of crap (I failed at being nice, oops).

Sorry, Poptropica, but if you want to appeal to the younger kids, you’ll have to try better than putting nursery rhymes and other cringe-y videos for kids under the age of 4. And think of all the older kids who were completely turned off by the juvenile videos!

Most disappointingly, these videos weren’t even made by Poptropica. Considering Poptropica’s animation and artistic quality, I’m sure they could’ve made a series of videos much better than what we got in the theater.

#4: THE REMOVAL OF IN-ISLAND MAPS

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Remember the in-island maps? No no, not the Islands Map that brings you to different islands; that still exists. I’m talking about the maps that could be found in each classic island. If you’re not aware, they were removed in 2015! Like, why would you wanna remove a really useful tool anyway? That doesn’t make any sense.

I mean, I get that some islands and pretty easy and you can complete them without a map (like Shark Tooth or 24 Carrot), but there are also some pretty difficult islands where you can easily get lost (such as Vampire’s Curse or Cryptids). Maybe they didn’t want to continue making them for newer islands (they stopped when SUIs came out) but they still could’ve kept the old ones.

By the way, if you really need a map, you can visit the PHB’s map page. There’s a map for every Poptropica original island, and we even made a few of our own for SUIs which didn’t come with their own maps.

#3: MEMBERSHIP

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Membership, which is paid subscription for extra benefits, is a way to keep Poptropica alive with financial support. Like it or not, it’s not going anywhere. It was first released in 2010, but a large population of players still prefer to play for free.

While membership does not affect actually playing through an island (that is, if you’re not playing a members-only island), a lot of other things require membership.

Membership has its own pros and cons. First of all, without the financial support that membership brings in, we wouldn’t have Poptropica or Pop Worlds. Poptropica needs to make money to pay its talented creators to keep making cool things.

While membership doesn’t interfere too much on Poptropica Original, it unfortunately took a turn for the worse with some recent updates on Poptropica Worlds. You can read more about it in this PHB analysis or this Clawtropica rant.

#2: SOUND-UPDATED ISLANDS (SUIs)

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Sound Updated Island aren’t considered that bad anymore. I mean, who doesn’t love Jeff Heim’s music? But when SUIs first came out, they were SUPER glitchy. Even now, they sometimes still are.

SUIs started with the announcement for Beta Carotene, where members got to beta test the SUI version of 24 Carrot Island. Since it was a beta test, it was almost guaranteed there would be some bugs.

However, when SUIs OFFICIALLY came out, they were still super glitchy. Some people hated SUIs but kept playing Poptropica. Others, however, were so disappointed that they quit the game altogether.

Fortunately, Sound Updated Islands have since improved and are now less glitchy, but most people still prefer classics over SUIs, including me. Even though I myself was never really affected by the SUIs’ initial glitchiness, since I started playing Poptropica in 2014 (a year after SUIs were introduced), I still prefer classic islands anyway.

#1: MAKING SEVEN SPONSORED ISLANDS MEMBERS ONLY

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I don’t know what got into the Creators, but this idea was a major blow. You think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. The idea of making 7 Islands members-only was hated so much, that it was voted “Worst Poptropica Update” in the Poppies Awards… twice!

I was really mad when that happened, since I hadn’t had the chance to beat one of those islands (Red Dragon Island) before it was locked to non-members.

Fortunately, the Creators made some amends by releasing one of the islands back to everyone during their March Madness contest, and I was able to play Red Dragon since that was the winning island.

You can also get the island medallions through the glitching tool iPop, but it’s not quite the same as actually playing the island. Besides, not everyone knows about glitching.

Making non-members play a new island a month later was one thing, but making seven islands members-only was a bit TOO mean, don’t you think?

Some of these updates may have ruined the whole game experience for some Poptropica players, but nothing’s perfect. At least Poptropica hasn’t flopped as badly as Club Penguin, which notoriously shut down to create a worser, mobile-only version of the game. (And Disney, if you ever buy Poptropica, I’m going to murder your CEO in your sleep.) Though Poptropica had its bad moments, it’s also been pretty awesome overall (and isn’t that why we’re still here?).

Anyway, thanks for reading this list! It took me a while to make, and if you enjoyed it, please show your support by checking out the original post and commenting below!

That’s PC, signing out ‘til my next post!

🐾 Purple Claw 🐾
:mrgreen: 🌊

Pop Petitions

Pop Petition: What We Want From Pop Worlds, Pt. 3

Spotted Dragon

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Hey guys, Spotted Dragon here with another Pop Petition! This one is about Poptropica Worlds yet again.

With my last post on Worlds focusing on all the positives, it was only inevitable that the negatives would be brought back up. Although, remember that these posts aren’t meant as complaints about the game! They are simply voicing what we want and what we are excited for! Click here for our first Pop Worlds Petition and click here for our second.

Anyway, we’ve talking about customization, interacting with friends, glitches, and more, so what could possibly be left? Well, we saw all your feedback and we totally get that Poptropica Worlds still has a lot to live up to. So, let’s get into it!

#1: Item/Power Cards

How could we forget about this? We have a store full of clothes and a store filled with house decor, but there are no items/powers anywhere for purchase! In Original Poptropica, we had gum, balloons, electric powers, followers, and more to choose from.

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Currently, there is not even a place where we could go looking to buy items/powers. While these items don’t really help game-play, they were always a cool addition to the ways we could customize our characters. I guess it always comes back around to wanting more customization, huh?

We are already seeing more animation in Poptropica Worlds, such as the little movements our Poptropicans make when idle, and I feel like this attention to animation could make item cards even more exciting. Although, now that I think about it, this will probably just lead to even more lag at our multiverse parties!

#2: Old Cursor

Remember how the old cursor we had in game changed length and color? Well I’m sure you’ve noticed that those features are no longer a part of the cursor in Poptropica Worlds. The movement controls are still the same, but the appearance is slightly different. It may not seem like a big deal, but to some it is a big change.

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With the old cursor, the arrow turned green when you would jump, turned blue when you would just walk, and turned yellow when you would crouch. In addition to this, the arrow grew longer the further it was away from your player. Both of these features helped to determine exactly how your character would move and where they would go.

You can move the same way in Poptropica Worlds, but it can often be a bit difficult when you’re trying to land on a small, specific platform. I found myself falling into lava on Crisis Caverns more than once I admit. If the color change and length change were added back, I think that making precise jumps would be much easier. Don’t you agree?

#3: Organized Store

Now here is something that even Original Poptropica didn’t have! A more organized store. In OP and Pop Worlds, costumes (and in OP’s case: item cards) were simply arranged in a single row, usually by date added with some exceptions for holiday features and whatnot.

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Having things disorganized makes it very difficult and time consuming to find something specific. It also means that the things in the “back” of the store get viewed and bought less. It’s especially a hassle in Pop Worlds, since only a handful of costumes are shown on one page and you have to wait for new pages to load. We’ve had a similar problem in the past with Poptropica’s backpack too. Players who had tons upon tons of items had a hard time finding things, even though you could organize things alphabetically and by date.

In the future, when Poptropica Worlds expands, organization will certainly become more of a problem. Not only in the house/clothing stores, but in our inventory as well. The solution? Well one idea is simple… a search bar. Another solution? Instead of selling full outfits, maybe have different pages for different accessories. Just some ideas.

#4: Mouth Customization

At this point, no one should be surprised to see we want more customization! Like, seriously. It’s super limited right now. In addition to being stuck with our hair and skin colors, we are also stuck with the mouths that we chose when first logging in.

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This isn’t a super big deal if you’re content with the mouth you chose. But what if I feel like classin’ myself up one random day with a little lipstick? What if I’m down in the dumps and have the urge to needlessly express that through an online kids’ game? Welp, I currently can’t put a frown, nor ruby red lips on my Poptropican.

This isn’t the only problem like this that people have come across. Many things that players chose upon first logging in have come back to haunt them in a mildly annoying way. This seems like something that should be easily fixable. I know it’s weird to “store mouths in your closet…” *ahem* but I mean we are already able to store blush and other facial features, so it’s not that big of a stretch.

#5: First Log-in Accessories

This is something that I briefly mentioned while taking about mouth customization. Yes, yes, it’s yet another customizing concern. Like I said before, many people end up wanting to change whatever design they chose when first logging into Poptropica Worlds. However, it doesn’t just have to do with hair color and facial expressions.

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Maybe when you logged in, you chose a pair of black shoes that you thought were fitting, huh? But then later, you realized you totally should have chosen those once in a lifetime rainbow kicks! Okay, I might be reflecting my own past decisions when I explain this, but my point is still clear. All those cool clothes, hairstyles, and other accessories are not available anywhere else in the game.

We wouldn’t have as much of a problem if the initial clothes we could chose from also showed up in the store. In Original Poptropica, many of the initial clothes we could chose from showed up in common rooms and on Early Poptropica’s NPC’s. Thus, it was still possible to customize the things we seemingly missed out on. Like a few other things on this petition, it’s not a huge problem but it’s something nice that I think a lot of players would appreciate.

So, what are your thoughts? Do you agree with our list? Shout out what YOU want to see in Poptropica Worlds and what other subjects you want to see petitions for!

~SD

Pop 5

Pop 5: Best Poptropica Worlds Features

Spotted Dragon

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Hello everyone, Spotted Dragon here with another post on Poptropica Worlds! But here’s the twist… Lots of people, including myself, have been focusing on the game’s negative features. While those features shouldn’t be ignored, it really isn’t fair of us to negate all the positive things that Worlds has going for it!

This update has been huge and there is still a long way to go for it, so while we deserve to be skeptical, we also have to look on the bright side. Thankfully, there are still a lot of people looking into every pro and con of Poptropica Worlds, including a newbie interview that provides a very refreshing perspective on the matter.

Without further ado, let’s get into our Pop 5 Best Poptropica Worlds Features!

#5: Houses

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Yes, the house brought along its own fair share of glitches. And yes, not everyone was thrilled to hear that they were being added either. Still, the idea has wandered through many minds at one point or another. The dream of a home in Poptropica has been hidden away in the back of Poptropicans’ heads for quite some time.

This feature, like others, has a lot of unused potential as of right now, but it brought something new and exciting to the world of Poptropica. It’s nice to have a building we can each call home. Who doesn’t love personalizing stuff in video games?

#4: The Quest Log

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Despite the glitches it currently has, the quest log is actually a pretty cool addition to Poptropica. It gives the player a good idea of how far they’ve gotten through an island and helps to remind us what we have to do next. The latter is especially useful if you’ve been away from the game for quite some time.

Thankfully for us, it doesn’t give away too much of the story-line and doesn’t just give away the solution to any problem faced on your quest. In addition to the quest log, the new dialogue format allows for reading text at your own pace, which used to be a problem. Though it too has its flaws, these kinds of features make for less speed-bumps while you’re gaming!

#3: The Closet

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The closet we have now is not like the members only one in original Poptropica, but that doesn’t immediately mean it’s bad. In fact, in many ways it’s very useful! We can’t save outfits like we used to, but everything we buy in the new Store is organized with this feature.

Our old backpack was arranged by date and by alphabetical order, but it was still very hard to find things when the bag was bursting at its seams. At least the closet provides us with easy access to the clothes we bought, since everything is divided into categories. It’s not without glitches yet and when we all get to the point where we have too many clothes to count, there will surely be problems, but in my opinion it’s nice to have pants with pants and shirts with shirts.

#2: Buying Individual Apparel

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Not something you notice right away when playing the game, but still a significant change when heading to buy clothes. In the past, Poptropicans have had to spend big bucks on costumes in the store, even if they were only interested in a certain piece of that outfit. Say I liked the shorts on one costume and the shirt of another, I would have to spend a ton of credits on both in the Store.

With the Store’s new setup, you can buy each accessory separately, at a fraction of the entire outfit’s price. I know saying that just makes me sound like an annoying ad, but it really is a big money saver when you want to create a totally unique character design.

That being said, you do have to spend a lot when you do want the whole outfit. Plus, not all facial features are for sale and many things are for members only. It’s also important to point out that you can buy any costume now too, since they aren’t gender specific anymore!

#1: Art Direction

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I know, I know, lots of you probably disagree with this one. We are all used to our neckless, fingerless, shoeless old Poptropicans. A lot has changed with our characters’ looks, that’s true, but we can’t deny the artwork’s improvement just because we don’t like some design decisions. Just a glance at the game as a whole reveals how much the design’s quality has been enhanced.

Originally, the game had a very 2D feel to it. While Poptropica Worlds is obviously still a 2D game, the effort put into shading our characters and the detail put into scenes creates a lot more depth than what was previously drawn.

This is especially shown through the animations implemented in our characters, like when they get bored from lack of movement, which gives them a more realistic, life-like feel. It’s shown in the beautiful scenes from Crisis Caverns as well, despite how you may feel towards the island’s storyline.

Do you agree with our Pop 5 Best Poptropica Worlds Features? Let us know what you like about Poptropica Worlds in the comments! Until next time! 😛

~SD

Pop 5

Pop 5: Poptropica Places We Wish Were Real

Slanted Fish

This post originally appeared on Pop Blog, which recently won Best Fan Site in the 2017 Poppies! It’s now being shared on the PHB courtesy of the author, Mia, and this list represents only the author’s opinions. See the bottom of this post for how you, too, can write for the PHB!

Hey fellow Poptropicans!

So, this post is about islands – maybe somewhere in Hawaii, where it’s peaceful, quiet, calm– wait, not those islands… Poptropica Islands! You know, fighting crime, wreaking havoc, saving lives, and heck, even ruining lives (for evildoers of course). Anything but peaceful! Yes, there are some Poptropica islands I wish were real places on this very Earth and here’s 5 of ’em! 😀

(Side note: I know some Poptropica Islands take place in real places on Earth, usually straight from the past or realistic places that aren’t specifically named. So yeah…  just makin’ sure you guys know that I don’t doubt the existence of things like caves. xD)

#1: Time Tangled Island

First off, there’s Time Tangled Island. From here, I’d basically like to be able to time travel to all of the different time periods! I mean how great would it be to shake hands with Thomas Jefferson or meet Ancient Vikings!

Time Tangled: Apollo

#2: Ghost Story Island

Secondly, Ghost Story Island! Now, normally people wouldn’t want to live in a place with ghosts or supernatural beings, but how cool would it be to be able to see ghosts! Same thing goes for the vampires on Vampire’s Curse, but I won’t count that as one of my choices since the reason is practically the same. 😛 And hey, who says ghosts don’t actually exist? Boo!

#3: Mythology Island

Then there’s Mythology Island! Greek gods and goddesses roaming around – magic and mythical beings, amazing items and acts being witnessed every day! Enough said! Who wouldn’t want Mythology Island to be real?

#4: Shrink Ray Island

Fourth, Shrink Ray Island! Of course, I would like the ability to be able to change back and forth between normal size and tiny, but wouldn’t it be fun to jump on marshmallows like trampolines and be able to fit in a dollhouse? And who knows? Maybe someday science will get there!

#5: Monster Carnival Island

Last but not least, Monster Carnival! Not your run-of-the-mill carnival, that’s for sure! In this carnival, you’re walking along side disguised monsters and having this old-timey creepy feel. Sure, it would be scary at first – but who doesn’t love a good scare?

Ringmaster Raven’s Tent, Monster Carnival Island

I hope you guys could relate with some of these choices! What other Poptropica places would you want to check out in real life? Until next time!

~Mia

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Mia! If you did, be sure check out her site, Pop Blog.

The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. You can find some tips and guidelines on our Write for the PHB page. We also encourage sharing blog posts on the PHC.

If you have an idea for a PHB post, send it in!