Category: Pop Petitions

This series is all about what fans want to see in the game. From bringing the old islands back to ideas for clubhouse perks, the requests don’t stop!

Guest Posts, Pop Petitions

Pop Pet-ition: let pets have friends

Slanted Fish

This is a guest post by Quick Fang petitioning for a feature for pets on Poptropica to have their own profiles and befriend other pets. Enjoy!

Hey Poptropicans! It’s Quick Fang here with a request for the Creators.

So my pet kitten in Poptropica, Snowball, has been feeling a little lonely and bored these days. After all, as a Poptropican adventurer, I’ve been a little occupied with, you know, exploring islands, decking out my clubhouse, and buying new things for my pet and myself.

Ever since the pets feature was introduced, I’ve been thinking about the idea of having friends for our pets. This feature should be able to create new communities for our pets in Poptropica, so I think it’s worth a shot. And pets are even better than just followers, cuz’ we can deck them out in smashing outfits.

Sure, we could just meet up in the Arcade with our pets, but maybe Pet-tropicans (if you will) can do more to stay connected than just hanging out in the Arcade when their owners bring them there. Just think about it!

I’m wondering if Poptropica could actually make a friends profile for pets: the profiles could provide some basic info on our pets like their name (and yes, let’s have the ability to name our pets officially), their birthday (the day they were adopted from the Pet Barn), their colour, and some fun facts about them.

Or take it a step further and create templates for more full-fledged Petsonas (pet personas, which are like Popsonas, or Poptropica personas, but for pets). There are a couple examples on my blog.

Sometimes, pets really do look alike. But with the help of the Colorizer and costumes, you can mix and match to let people know that this really is your unique pet! So I’ll leave you with the Petsona of my kitten, Snowball:

Snowball enjoys the cold of Survival Island, playing outside, milk and fish. I’m her only friend, but I know Snowball would love more!

Share your pet with the Poptropica community, perhaps by commenting on this post! Stay awesome. This is Quick Fang, popping out.

Hope you enjoyed this Pop Petition guest post by Quick Fang! If you did, be sure to check out another guest post of hers: What would happen if there were no villains?

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 page on how to Write for the PHB. We also encourage sharing blog posts on the PHC.

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

Pop Petitions

Pop Petition: Free the Colorizer on Worlds for all

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans! Here’s a guest post by Gentle Fang on how the Colorizer helped her express herself on Poptropica Original and why such a feature ought to be more accessible to all on Poptropica Worlds. Check it out, and enjoy. ~ 🐠

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Hey guys! It’s Gentle Fang! If you have never heard of me, I did my own MPIP back in 2017 about a year ago, and also wrote a guest post about several islands in 2016. I have been playing Poptropica for about 6 years now (not all that consistently), and I really enjoy exploring islands and getting involved in the community.

As I have been playing for quite some time, I found that I had completed almost all the islands and had little left to do. As such, when Poptropica Worlds was first announced, I was overjoyed. I was so happy they were finally going to make new islands, add new material, and improve upon the characters.

When I got around to playing the new Poptropica Worlds once it came out, however, I found that I was underwhelmed. First off, talk about bad first impressions—the game took FOREVER to load. I had always been able to switch from scene to scene in a second on Poptropica Original, but I found that on Worlds it took quite some time.

When I was finally able to get into my closet to change my character, I was quite upset to find that the Colorizer — one of my favorite parts of Poptropica Original — was for members only. (Well, non-members get a few pre-selected colors for free. But that’s nothing compared to Poptropica Original.)

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My style is what sets me apart from the crowd. For years, I’ve had an outfit that was a mixture of all my favorite costumes, a little pet cat I called Buttons, and most importantly my bright turquoise hair. That hair color was the only thing about me that never changed. Hairstyles change (in real life, I recently cut off over 6 inches of hair). My outfit is almost constantly being modified (for some reason I went through a phase where I dressed like a police officer). My character also sometimes has glasses, and recently got freckles. The entire look was my way of expressing myself.

Most of my character’s traits represented something about my personality: her diva outfit showed my dramatic personality, her occasional glasses represented that although I need glasses I hardly ever wear them, and the new freckles reflected the ones that appeared on my actual face. But the hair didn’t represent my physical state — it represented my boldness.

Although I am not currently allowed to dye my hair, I know brightly colored hair would turn heads. That’s what I like to do — I am not someone who enjoys blending in or staying in the crowd. I wasn’t allowed to get a membership on any gaming sites because my parents didn’t trust technology that much, so I couldn’t buy anything that only members received. This meant I only had a minuscule amount of clothes and accessories to choose from. Since the Colorizer was free for everyone on Poptropica Original, and came with a wide array of colors, I was sucked in.

Six years of turquoise hair later, I was more than disappointed when my favorite color was taken away too, becoming a privilege only given to members. Of course, I attempted to get my mother to agree to buy me a membership, to no avail. I know that there are other kids or teenagers like me who cannot purchase a membership for whatever reason, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be able to express themselves.

I understand that memberships make the company money to keep Poptropica free. But I also think that things that were not under lock and key in Poptropica Original should remain that way in Worlds.

So, in closing, I would like to propose that the Poptropica Worlds Colorizer to ought to be accessible in its entirety to everyone.

This nifty tool is something that I quite enjoyed for more than half my life, and I would be very upset if it was removed from the game permanently for players without membership. I would very much like for this amazing tool to be made free for all.

Thanks so much for listening.

—Gentle Fang

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Gentle Fang! If you did, be sure to check out another guest post of hers: Tips & Tricks for Escape From Pelican Rock & Reality TV Island.

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 page on how to Write for the PHB. We also encourage sharing blog posts on the PHC.

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

Pop Petitions

Pop Petition: What We Want From Characters

Spotted Dragon

Pop Petition Header

Hey Poptropicans, SD here to bring you another Pop Petitions post! Like our islands petition, I want to focus on a very important game element. So today, we’ll be taking a look at what makes a good character engaging!

Unlike previous petitions, this post won’t emphasize so much on what the Creators are “doing wrong,” but more on simply what we love about a great character, and thus what we hope to see more of. Let’s get started!

#1: Character Development

We understandably can’t see a whole lot of development in every single character we meet in Poptropica. That’s just too unrealistic, as we can’t learn every detail about everyone. Still, development is important when it comes to making characters with depth.

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Most importantly, we need to see development in major characters that have an influence on plot. I’m talking about those who get the spotlight, the most prominent example being villains. If every villain were the same, Poptropica would get pretty darn boring, pretty darn fast.

The game isn’t a novel or a movie, so we can’t expect a whole lot, but I for one still love seeing someone’s personality evolve. Is that asking too much from a kid’s game? I really don’t think so, as it’s kinda important to teach kids that people can change, especially after slowly learning a big lesson. Isn’t that what educational games are about? While 2D art can be amazing, 2D characters are much less impressive.

#2: Diverse Clothing

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Customizing is a huge part of Poptropica, at least for me. Costume contests are hosted, ASGs are made, rare items are collected, etc. So, fans are always looking out for cool new clothes! Besides ads and the occasional store update, NPCs are the main way to find unique new accessories. There isn’t much diversity in things like body type in Poptropica, but clothing can still be wide-ranged!

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When designing a character, their clothing is obviously very important. What they’re wearing gives insight on their personality and significance in the island, but it should also catch the eye of various players. We’ve all seen development sketches of our favorite NPCs! The Creators can be meticulous in getting designs to be perfect.

The Creators have started to implement more modern fashion, which I personally think is a step in the right direction. These modern clothing options are more likely to appeal to newer players. The more unique clothing can be found throughout the game, the more diverse Poptropicans can be made, which is more accurate to real life. Having lots of detail in an outfit can really make a Poptropican feel individual!

#3: Captivating Dialogue

Other than appearance, dialogue is a prominent way in which a Poptropican’s personality shines through. The way someone talks can hint at what kind of person they are, in addition to their role in an island (just like clothing). Our own Poptropican’s speech can’t easily match our own in real life, but the variety of NPCs’ dialogue options are kinda endless.

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Word choice is particularly important in a kid’s game, as it can be used as a tool to expand the player’s vocabulary, but can’t be so complex that it’s hard to understand. Humor is often used throughout speech in Poptropica, which is perfect for the tone of the game. Plus, this isn’t a novel so characters shouldn’t be spouting out paragraphs upon paragraphs of text.

The back and forth conversation can’t be super long, but it also needs to move the plot forward. In order to not be a chore to read, the script needs to be captivating. Jokes and lines that build excitement are strongly needed! A balance needs to be reached in order to not only be easy for the target audience to read, but also entertaining!

#4: Individual Personality

I’ve already mentioned this factor in previous categories, but I still feel like it deserves its own spot. In any form of entertainment, whether that be literature, movies, shows, or games, the characters need to be unique! A pretty simple concept, but sometimes hard to make a reality.

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There are many ways to show a character’s personality, even in a simple game like Poptropica. These include appearance and dialogue, like I’ve said, but also things like actions and location. A favorite character should be hard to choose, merely because how diverse real people are. It’s important to keep the young target audience in mind, and make many significant characters easy to relate to in some way.

Similar to real life, not all Poptropicans should be perfect. When developing a character, flaws and quirks need to be embraced just as much as desired traits! Doing this gives even an NPC a bit more depth, believably, and interest. Rounding out these characters makes a game so much more immersive and enjoyable! Seriously, I would die for some of my favorite characters.

#5: A Purpose

Something easy to overlook, but still (in my opinion) important. Characters should not just be included in a scene to take up space. NPCs need some purpose to be where they are, to wear what they’re wearing, and to say what they say. Does background Poptropican #17 catch your eye?

mysterytrain14

Before you ignore my point, I know that we can’t take a close up look at every single minor islander and see what their purpose in life is. It isn’t necessary to think that significantly on characters that don’t have that much impact on plot. Save that for your fan-fics. Still, Poptropicans shouldn’t be randomly places on streets. Unless the Early Poptropicans on main-street just really like standing in the sun all day? No shame in that I guess.

Unless you’re going for an abandoned, Steamworks Island theme, characters should be generously placed around an island to create atmosphere. That, like other elements I’ve touched on, adds to a sense of immersion. Still, some thought should be put into why a character is a certain way, relatively simple purposes included. This is similar to how actors create backstories for their characters, to really give them life! Even a mundane purpose, because it’s not uncommon, makes a character realistic.

Remember that this post isn’t meant to bash the Creators, but instead voice the opinions and suggestions of fans. In fact, there are many instances in which Poptropica characters check all these boxes! We all want Poptropica to be as awesome as possible!

So, what are your thoughts? Do you agree with our list? What kinds of characters do you want to see in the future? Be sure to let us know what other Pop Petitions we should make as well!

~SD

Guest Posts, Pop Petitions

Pop Petition: Bring Original Features Back

Slanted Fish

This is a guest post written by Tallmeloniscool, a Poptropica player in the community. In this post he’ll be talking about what features he wants to see returned to Pop Original. Enjoy!

Pop Petition Header

For all the talk of focusing on Poptropica Worlds as the future of Poptropica, the Creators are still updating the original Poptropica. This strikes me as a bad move—once Flash goes away, won’t all these updates not matter anymore?

I’m not sure why they’re still updating Poptropica Original—maybe they don’t have enough Unity coders working on Worlds?—but since they haven’t let it go just yet,  here are the features I’d really like to see return to the original Pop.

#1: Bring back Realms

zrealms-background

Lots of people want Poptropica Realms to return. I see people in YouTube comments, the Poptropica Help Chat, and many other places wishing that Realms was brought back. Comments like this: “I have never been to Poptropica Realms, it looks really fun” or “I really wanted to finish my house.”

What I find even worse is that the Poptropica Creators never told us why Realms is down or when it is going to be fixed. So if fixing Realms is going to take longer than it already has, then the Creators should at least make a blog post on the Creators’ Blog saying what’s wrong with Realms.

#2: Bring back the old visual map

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If you’ve been playing Poptropica for a few years, you might remember on the non-SUIs, you had this map where you can see where you were on the island. But when the Poptropica Creators made it so that the SUI (sound-updated island) menu shows on the non-SUI islands, it ended up removing the classic maps and replacing them with the home map where you choose islands.

What I recommend to the Poptropica Creators is to change it so when you click on the map it would show the old visual map. Then add a new button that teleports you to the home map. That way we Poptropicans can have the old map, and a way to instantly go to the home map.

#3: Fix the way the islands are organized on the home map

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The way the islands are currently organized on the home map needs some fixing. For example, Mission Atlantis (a medium-hard island) is in the easy category, while Early Poptropica and Shark Tooth (two of the easiest islands!) are listed among the challenging islands. Also, the adventure category could definitely list more than four islands.

This “Map Mishaps” PHB post from a year ago covers more of the issues present that are still crying out to be re-done.

#4: Add a way to answer pop quizzes

quiz

When the home screen changed so that it took you straight to Home Island as opposed to the old home screen, Poptropicans could not access the home screen and answer the pop quizzes anymore. What will a new Poptropican do to get these quizzes?

My solution would be to bring the quizzes to the Home Island billboard, so we’d have another reason to log in again!

#5: Bring back old store items & costumes

store4

In my opinion, the Poptropica Creators took a real step backward by removing so many old store items, even though they’re rotating the stock every month. Why? Considering that Poptropica Original won’t be playable after the year 2020, what they should do is add back as many store items as possible—all the limited time items and costumes, and even ones that were forgotten.

This would allow old players to feel nostalgic about these old items in the game, and for the newer players to experience the old and limited time items. Though this may degrade the rarity value of some items/costumes, since Poptropica Original is not going to last forever, I really think this does not matter. What matters more is that we get to enjoy this version of Poptropica while it lasts!

So that’s the end of my guest post on the PHB. I hope that you enjoyed and agreed, and I hope you have a great day. BYE!

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Tallmeloniscool! If you did, be sure to check out another guest post of his: Pop 5: Ideas for Multiplayer Features.

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!

Hellos & Goodbyes, Pop Petitions

Pop Petition: What we want from the Creators’ Blog (and a message)

Spotted Dragon

Pop Petition Header

Yep, Spotted Dragon here with another Pop Petition! Like our previous petition posts, today we’ll be voicing some of our top concerns and hopes for our favorite game. And you’re welcome to chime in down in the comments!

There’s always room for improvement, right? Well I certainly think so. Not only have Poptropica islands been a bit lacking as of late, but the Creators’ Blog itself seems less than impressive lately as well. It seems like forever ago when we had frequent posts by notable personalities, but now it’s hard to tell who is doing the posting in the first place!

#1: Frequent Updates

This one seems a bit obvious, doesn’t it? A little update wouldn’t hurt anyone, and in fact would ease the minds of many fans! These days, what posts we do get from the Creators’ Blog seem to be “filler” at best.

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It seems to me that the main purpose of the Creators’ Blog should be updates. Leaving Poptropicans completely in the dark about the game’s future simply sparks concerned theories and, well… posts like this. It is totally understandable that not everything can be revealed, but it’s hard to maintain interest in something that you know nothing about.

That being said, we have gotten some posts recently that fall under the “update” umbrella, ranging from ad announcements even to an actual island announcement. Posts like these certainly make me optimistic, but trends do not exactly show consistency, nor on-time publication. And it may just honestly be that we aren’t getting the right kind of updates we are hoping for?

#2: Fan Interaction

We’ve all seen the  comment capabilities on the blog, in hand with the “liking” system, but we’ve also had our fair share of complaints about it. We’ve also seen new interactive “games” being featured on the blog, like one that looks a whole lot like some of our own community members game ideas…

Guess the Island

A big complaint we’ve already faced is the time it takes for a comment to get approved. While this is of course understandable, it does seem to take longer than necessarily… necessary. Additionally, there are original content concerns, which at this point is to be expected. The “guess the island” style game has circled fan blogs for years now, and the Creators are really late to the punch.

These issues are not only fixated on the Creators’ Blog, but stem to their other social media outlets too. Fans continue to miss Skinny Moon, Poptropica’s old social media manager, and for good reasons. With her in charge of social media, someone’s job was literally to interact with fans on a daily bases. Voices were heard more often then than ever, and since she has left that feeling has steadily declined. We persistently tweet questions and try reaching higher levels of interaction these days, but whoever is behind Poptropica’s Twitter (and Blog of course) today just doesn’t do as much as we’re looking for I suppose.

#3: Behind the Scenes Looks

Concept art, sneak peeks of upcoming features, HQ photos, you name it. Behind the Scenes pictures always seem to intrigue fans, if not only a little bit. And while we do get the occasional glance behind the curtain on the Creators’ Twitter, their blog posts are less than enticing in that department.

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Again, it is understandable that not everything can be revealed. That would take the fun out of everything! But hints here and there lead to amazing theories and excitement among Poptropicans. With the length between island releases increasing, it is important to keep up moral and interest in the fanbase.

Though it’s nice to see some photos from HQ on Twitter fairly often I suppose, the Creators’ Blog continues to not live up to its potential. And our hunger for information on islands is constantly unsatisfied. This doesn’t mean we want a bunch of repetition between the social media platforms, but it does mean that the Creators should catch on to what their audience gravitates towards.

#4: The Archive Feature

Lucky Joker was quick to point out that the archive feature on the Creators’ Blog was recently removed. Though there is still a search-bar, the sidebar of the blog has always seemed a bit bare.

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Currently, the sidebar on the blog consists of a little welcome message, social media links, a search-bar, popular posts, and the list of island info pages. But what if you want to… pop down memory lane? Archive features can be super useful when you need or want to look back at old posts. While a search-bar provides a similar service, sometimes you don’t know what a post’s title is, or you aren’t looking for anything specific. Archives are especially useful when you’re looking for something in a particular month or time-frame.

Though this feature obviously is not a constant need, it’s a nice tool for both those nostalgic Poptropicans and those intense researchers. It wouldn’t be used everyday, sure, but what’s the harm in keeping it up? It doesn’t take up a huge amount of space and it adds more purpose to the sidebar as a whole.

#5: ANSWERS!

Yes, this request definitely overlaps some points I’ve made in this post already, but I still think it deserves a full section of it’s own! Similar to fan interaction and frequent updates, I think “answers” sums up most of what I’m looking for.

Gone forever?

All in all, we simply can’t have radio silence if we still want this fandom to thrive! The community is strong, but we would be lying if we didn’t acknowledge the diminishing interest in Poptropica. But is that anyone’s fault? No fan is to blame for slowly moving away from something that doesn’t update, retain relevance, and well… answer questions!

I know this request sounds vague, but it can be hard to pin down exactly what can save this game. It’s not that Poptropica isn’t fun anymore, or that characters aren’t appealing, or that storylines don’t pull you in. I think that a huge portion of the problem stems from how things are currently being run! Fans are left in the dark far too often. The Creators’ Blog should be a way for those behind Poptropica to reach out to its fanbase, to answer questions, and to collectively find ways to improve the game.

Remember that this post isn’t meant to bash the Creators, but instead voice the opinions and suggestions of fans. We all want Poptropica to be as awesome as possible!

So, what are your thoughts? Do you agree with our list? What do you want to see more often on the Creators’ Blog? Be sure to let us know what other Pop Petitions we should make as well!

Silver Wolf - Transparent BackgroundMoving on however, I do have some bad news to add to the end of this post…

Silver Wolf has decided to leave the PHB, a choice that no one can blame her for, of course. Her passion for both blogging and Poptropica has lessened, as it does for many fans over time (not to mention how time consuming preparing for senior year of high school can be!). Still, what she brought to the community was thoughtful posts, creativity, and kindness!

I’ve personally become close friends with Wolfy over both of our author careers, and we started blogging around the same time. She will certainly be missed by all the PHB authors, but don’t worry too much! She will still be active on Discord and I may just force her to never leave DeviantArt.

She assures us that she will not be completely leaving the community, and will be sure to leave her own blog up. It was an honor for her to work on the PHB and she appreciates everything that this fandom gave her, including amazing friends and experiences!

~SD